The catch
by AnonymousTurtleBird
Summary: It was fate that decided to bring him back and it was fate that had him twisted into the dark parts of politics once again. Itachi TimeTravel fic! Discontinued!
1. Chapter 1

**I'll leave the previous AN there because it does hold some information. In any case, I have seriously edited this story to try and make Itachi less of an OOC. It's been a year since I have even put anything up here but that isn't to say I was doing nothing... I've re-written this story so many times I've lost count (I've even changed the main character to Naruto once xD) in the end I decided to stick close to what I was doing before but if you find any weird tidbits in the story that might be because of all the editing...**

 **XXXXX**

 **Hey** **guys: I know it's probably an idea that's been used over and over but I couldn't get it out of my head. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it but I'd like to warn you: I'm not the best writer around and some parts were rather rushed. But let's not keep you from the story! I'll write down some information below about chapter length and updates but you are not required to read it!**

 **\- Chapters will each be between the 5k and 6k words, I believe longer chapters read more comfortable**

 **\- A new chapter will be released ever two to three weeks (sorry about that)**

 **\- This is not a romance story or a 'hey I wanna write about that situation' story. The catch has an actual plot**

 **\- Should I be warning you about stuff... I don't know, I believe my writing to be reasonable mellow though it holds some violence that comes hand in hand with the shinobi life style**

 **\- I do not own Naruto (Duh!)**

"Sorry Sasuke, there won't be a next time."

He fell, his brother the last image he'd ever see before he sank into the bliss of not existing anymore. Being dead was almost like dreaming, Itachi noted. Things happened around you, with you and you were aware they were happening, even going along with it but you could never pin down what it was. He was incapable of remembering what had passed after a while, only a blurred and vague impression of it stayed with him.

At first it didn't raise many questions in him but then the feeling of dreaming left and was replaced with nothing. Then many questions followed. Was it right to not remember what death was like if he was supposed to be dead? Was is right to think? To know he was Itachi Uchiha when he wasn't supposed to be at all?

And when a massive flow of chakra that he couldn't and didn't want to identify flooded the emptiness of death he realised that no, it definitely wasn't right. Nothing was ever right with him.

He fell again, the feeling far more intense without a body to keep him together. His senses sharpened and dulled at the same time and something awakened in him, something he hadn't missed nor desired.

The scent was all wrong…

There was nothing familiar in the air, a fact that unsettled him. He smelled people he didn't know, a breeze he didn't recognise and most disconcerting of all he breathed in his own scent and it was nothing like how he used to smell.

Where was he? He opened his eyes and was greeted with the sight of an open window that revealed signs of a rising sun. Light blue walls surrounded the window or were they grey? He couldn't tell. Turning his eyes away he focused on keeping his breathing silent. This made him notice it… He could breath. The obstruction in his lungs that had always accompanied him was gone and somehow he felt off without it, empty. The pain that had flared through his lungs with every breath had been a constant throughout his adult years. Something he could always trust to be there, a rare thing for someone with his lifestyle. It had been comforting, in a way. He very nearly missed it.

Why wasn't he dead?

For pondering if he was dead at all was far beyond pointless: he could smell and see and even feel the irritated skin that had been burned by Sasuke's last attack. He was alive but that didn't take away the lingering suspicion that he wasn't supposed to be. If his illness hadn't been the end of him of like he had originally thought then surely Sasuke would have finished him off? Unless… Sasuke was somehow unable to do so. His brother hadn't been in the best of states when he last saw him. If that was the case then who had found him? Konoha or Akatsuki or other less important individuals?

He startled when a loud noise invaded his ears something shifted in the corner of his eyes, a someone to be more precise. A girl, only in her early teens slowly rose from a small futon placed to his bottom right. Two others, also laying on small and rickety futons moved, showed signs of waking, but didn't bother to get up. Indiscreetly, his gaze followed the walking girl who made her way over to a simple closet, standing on her toes to grab something laying on top of it. It was an old-fashioned clock, he realised, a very old-fashioned clock. And through its rapidly moving pendulum it was making a whole lot of noise. She turned it off and returned to her futon.

The others now started rising and he pretended to close his eyes, allowing himself to see through very small slits. They moved around, appearing to get ready for the day and he felt like a leopard walking in on a lion pride devouring its kill, misplaced, an accidental intruder surrounded by an enemy predator that would tear him to shreds should he be seen. He did not belong in that room and it would show the moment he did anything besides pretending to sleep.

So, he eased himself in a position that was likely to be one of a sleeping person, slowed his breathing to an easy, deep rhythm and parted his lips just so that it looked like there were no muscles working to shape them. Soon he made himself appear like he was deep into dreamland with practised ease. At home, he had often feigned sleep when his mother wanted to talk to him about his well-being.

Still a person approached him, he could sense her chakra signature getting closer, small but crystal clear on his senses. Strange, one had to use chakra to sense yet he could not recall summoning the foreign chakra running through his network.

A hand touched his shoulders and he let his eyes flutter fully open. There was no point in feigning sleep when somebody was obviously trying to wake you. It was the girl who had woke up first to put off the alarm. She had crouched down to shake his uninjured shoulder and Itachi took a moment to appreciate she had not just nudged him with her toe.

"Chie, we're going to be late. Dress yourself." She said. Only because he had no grasp on the situation he was in, did he nod.

Satisfied, the girl stood up and turned his back on him. And there it was, like the vilest nightmare it jumped in his sight, cracking his calm facade and shattering his indifference all together. His mind screamed bloody murder as the symbol on her back glared at him, filling his vision with nothing but the sight of it.

The Uchiha insignia, in all its glory.

Never before had Itachi found himself unable to comprehend a situation. Being unable to process one or cope with one, yes it could happen, but he had been sharp enough to understand what was happening around him even if he didn't want to know. But right then and there his mental prowess left him, keeping his mind empty. All he could do was dress himself and follow along.

XXXXXX

The symbol was everywhere and there were so many Uchiha's running around. How was this possible? Was he truly that far in the future for so many descendants of Sasuke to exist? His mind played with the idea of him inhabiting the body of a great great great great grandchild of his little brother.

There were other options of course. He could have finally gone crazy and all of this only really existed in his head. But rebirth was also not impossible. Ideas flooded his head, one more absurd than the other, yet still he felt strangely apathetic towards the whole ordeal. This life did not interest him, and he had completed his goals in the other one.

Yes, he had questions. Such as why was the clan untied to a village? Surely no ninja village would leave one of the most powerful dojutsu to live by themselves. No matter he could not find the will inside himself to go looking for the answer and yet he picked up on information anyway as a deformation that his profession had created. By just being there, doing chores for the clan he had learned a list of things. They were orphans. It was quite clear when them and three boys had been served a meagre breakfast by two elderly women. They all wore the same navy blue uniform and the empty, hopeless eyes of the other kids told him enough.

He inhabited the body of Chie and he learned some things about the girl as well since the other girls were a chatty bunch, twelve, he was currently twelve years old, untrained in the art of the ninja and totally unremarkable. He and the other girls got burned by a high-levelled exploding tag when the clan got attacked. It was just a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time but he lost a good deal of his skin for it. His right arm and most of his back carried the worst injuries, lighter wounds went down his legs. The pain was hard to swallow once the numbness of sleep had gone away and Itachi wondered why the medics hadn't just healed it. Perhaps he was not important enough at times like these.

Because the clan was facing hard times, try as they might to hide it. There were men sharpening their kunai, women fixing tattered clothes and no children were seen playing, only training. War. The Uchiha were either at war, or preparing for one.

All the while he ran around doing the simplest of chores, or rather watching the other orphans do those chores while he was excused from any physical labor.

Orphans were put to work in the Uchiha system, given tasks like feeding the stock animals or sweeping the public roads. It was a productive way to deal with them he supposed but the kids themselves found it rather unjust.

"Chie, are you feeling alright? It's a hot day today, which must be really annoying for your burns. Don't forget to see the nurse tonight." The girl that woke him up that morning was the only one to try and make a conversation with him every now and then but Itachi rarely responded with more than a nod or a 'hn'. Chie had apparently been a quiet child as well since the other didn't really seem to expect him to talk. The one that did was called Fuji and she was the mother hen amongst them, ordering them around, making sure they were all well. Some would think of this as annoying but Itachi thought it was no more than necessary. The other two would be an unorganized, clueless mess without her instructions and would never get any work done. Fuji told them what to do and how to do it in such a way that everybody could work effectively. She would have made a great squad leader.

After his silence the three girls started talking among themselves again. While he didn't really want to listen in, he had nothing else to focus on and well… it was just so easy.

"I hope the deliveries coming in won't be too big today, I hate to spend time in that creepy warehouse." A girl with light freckles, Ayama he recalled, commented.

"I hope that war will break out soon so there will be a little bit of peace around here for once." Ren snickered at her own joke while pulling out plucks of grass from the field they were sitting on. She was a spiteful girl with a big mouth, a dangerous combination.

Fuji her chest rose suddenly, which was accompanied by a sharp inhale. "Don't say stuff like that!" The girl looked over her shoulder as if she expected someone to spy on them. "You know how much they hear. Do you want to get in trouble?"

With a frown Ayama sat up to look at the huge clock on the sentry tower. "Stop bickering, the break's almost over. Only five more minutes and we'll have to help unpack the new deliveries." Two girls groaned out loud and Itachi thought he'd much rather unpack recourses for the Uchiha all his life then be a ninja for one more day.

XXXXXX

"Ugh I hate chickens!" Ren, by far the most temperamental one of their group, lashed out with her foot when another chicken pecked in her unprotected, sandaled feet. Like usual Itachi offered no reply and returned to filling the water reservoirs of the chickens. Her spiking chakra had made him turn to her in curiosity but it turned out it had been nothing but her irritation. It was said that people born as sensors – and he was beginning to suspect Chie/he was one of them – could even sense the emotions of people after hard and relentless training. Though Chie probably never had any training he could sense _something_ in the chakra of people, something he never felt before.

When he sensed Ren move sharply to the right he turned to her again. Chickens were running from her and it looked like she had just kicked one while proceeding to harshly throw their food at them. Briefly, Itachi entertained the idea of telling her to calm down as he didn't appreciate animal violence, or any violence for that matter, but chose to keep silent regardless.

"Ugh, I just want this to be over with. Ayama and Fuji are probably having so much fun together and I'm stuck here with you." She said looking disgruntled. While her comment was certainly not a friendly one, Itachi knew Ren had a softer spot than she wouldn't care to admit. It showed in the way she reserved food for Itachi when the other orphans tried to eat everything or in how she always looked over her shoulder to make sure Itachi was still following them. So, he wasn't bothered by her less then kind words, the girl had been through a lot to make her like she was.

Three days had passed already, three full days without fighting for his life and taking that of others. Seventy-two hours without worries. Even though he tried to fight it, his guard fell allowing him to enjoy this life and relax for the first time since his childhood shattered in the war. Salvation had come to him in a rather strange form but it had come to him anyway. His burdens were gone and there were no more expectations to weight him down. Yes, there was a war raging on and the Uchiha's were part of it but he had no attachments here, war couldn't strike him as it had done in his previous life.

Maybe, just maybe, his three roommates had started to grow on him despite the fact that he hardly communicated with them but he had found out that in this Uchiha clan women generally didn't fight. It didn't surprise him, the Uchiha were always a more traditional clan and kunoichi were a rarity among them. However, there was never an explicit rule saying they couldn't become a ninja back in his days but here it was simply not accepted. It was almost like the clan had gone back in time. Old fashioned or not it spared him from participating in yet another war. 'Never again.' He thought. No, he would just settle for enjoying it here.

It was possible that this wasn't even real. But he did not think such an elaborate genjutsu was a realistic possibility and this was certainly not how he had imagined his afterlife, that had included a lot more redeeming for his sins and a lot less running around like a teenage girl.

Sweat dampened his heavy clothes as he emptied the last bucket of water in the reservoir. His skin protested with every movement he made and while he was excused from physical labour he got tired of watching others work after a while. Still he sighed in relief when he heard the bells and dropped the empty bucket. Ren who had been opening a sack of grain with a utility knife threw it aside and stretched her arms. "Oh yes, Break time!"

She started making her way to the chicken pen to alert the others but Itachi couldn't keep his attention on her. Instead he was staring at the knife. 'To take or not to take?' Swam in his mind. It was the only weapon girls were allowed to handle aside from kitchen knives and thus he could have it with him as an emergency defence. His old deep seeded habit of having weapons with him at all times begged him to take the knife but another part of him wanted nothing to do with his shinobi life anymore and revolted at the thought of taking up a weapon ever again.

Eventually his cautious, paranoid part won the battle and he bent down to pick up the box cutter, mindful of his searing skin. The thing just disappeared in a deep pocket before three girls emerged from the chicken pen. Two of them looked ruffled and feathers were stuck in their hair and the third was laughing, it appeared like, incredibly loudly.

 **"** Good, it's finally time for our noon break then. **"** Fuji's mounth barely moved when she murmured that. Judging from her dishevelled appearance, the chickens did not take kindly to egg thieves.

It was no surprise that they opted to march towards the fence at top speed and leave the chickens behind them. Itachi followed suit also eager to get away even though he had no problems with chickens.

"You know, I want more than this for us." Fuji all but sighed when she flopped down on the grass. They took their break in the garden of the orphanage.

Ayama nodded with silent agreement but Ren just Shrugged.

"Like what?" She demanded to know.

Fuji, who had busied herself with rearranging her braid didn't bother to look towards her but answered nonetheless. "Like high society stuff, the parties and fancy getups. A good marriage with a good man."

"Sounds dreadfully boring." Ren responded quickly, without pause and Itachi had to agree with her. He'd been there – except for the marriage part – and found none of it worthwhile.

"No more than this is." Fuji shot back, frown in place. "I thought it was your dream to become a successful tailor."

Ren shrugged again. "I changed my mind from all that girly stuff," She plucked at her short burned off hair as if losing it meant losing her girly-ness, perhaps it did. Her hair had caught fire in the explosion that made Itachi lose his skin and while it was put out relatively quickly, the damage had been done and her hair barely reached passed her chin. "I want to be a shinobi."

Both Ayama and Fuji inhaled sharply and sputtered out things like 'are you crazy' and 'that's insane' but Ren looked like she didn't even hear the comments and said, "I don't care." The three of them started arguing about it while Itachi stretched himself out on the grass, relaxing his tired limps. Once those three got going it would take a while before it was resolved

Ayama's freckled nose scrunched up when they all calmed down a bit. Itachi felt rather than saw her pointing at him. He lifted his head. "It's your turn to get water."

"Ayama, her injuries, she can't possi-" Fuji started but stopped when she saw Itachi pushing himself from the ground and ambled towards the orphanage. "I'll do it." He mumbled with his hoarse and rather deep voice. Itachi saw the girls starting an argument again but he wasn't interested enough to 'listen in'.

While they were fed rather little as orphans the weather was hot enough to be dangerous with too little water. So, it always available, put into glass cans on a table in the entrance hall.

Itachi grabbed one that still seemed reasonably cooled and took a few sips himself, the advantage of being the one to get it, then shuffled back towards the exit. By the time he felt it he was almost out the door **.** It made him stop dead in his tracks. He recognised that sensation… It was a feeling that had haunted him in his worst nightmares and still send shivers down his spine. He didn't even need to use any sensing to feel the horrendous vibe of hormonal fan girls.

He could recognise that energy from anywhere and almost cowered back into the building. Oh, he had had them following him, gushing over him and stalking him even when he had been an s-ranked criminal and even more so when he hadn't been. Back then hours had been lost on hiding and detouring to avoid them and it was still an instinctual reaction to flee while he still could. But Itachi did not cower and pressed forward with the knowledge that he was safe in his current condition.

A notable group of girls had collected on the road aside the orphanage and it was disappointing to find his companions among them. Ayama he could understand, she seemed like that kind of person but he had never expected Fuji or Ren to giggle like crazed hyenas. He didn't really want to go to them but he was still holding the water he promised to Ayama. There was no choice, he would just have to deliver it quickly and then get the hell out of there to enjoy the rest of the break. His eyes caught the boy who was the catalyst of this disaster, a handsome young lad who reminded him of Sasuke but with slightly longer and wilder hair. That should have been his first warning. The boy looked increasingly uncomfortable as he tried to squeeze past the group.

Itachi tapped on Ayama's shoulder when he made it to her. She turned to him. 'Wha-' her eyes moved to the water can and a mischievous light shone in them. "Oh Chie, what a great idea I can give it Madara-kun. He must be thirsty in this weather." And she pulled it out of his hands.

The words crashed into him like brick stones. His eyes sought out the boy again, the boy who would betray his village, the boy who had ran his blade through a fair share of Uchiha clan members, he who was behind the akatsuki organization. There was no question about who he was, not a single soul would consider calling their child Madara after the last one. For the first time since he was here he felt his chakra pulsing. The foreign feel of it was completely lost on Itachi when he felt his chakra boil with _hatred_ , lashing out around with anger and spiking with intent.

He was _not_ in the future, he was not free of burdens and this was definitely not his salvation. At the thought his chakra spiked up even more intense than before. It was enough to make _Madara's_ head snap towards him and as their eyes connected Itachi locked his control around it. The violent chakra influx vanished so abruptly it left the air around them feeling empty, light almost. He didn't stop staring at the boy but he managed to school his expression into one of feigned indifference. His father would scoff at him for making such a show out of himself.

It sickened him to see Ayama run up to him to offer the water giddily. Slowly the boy named Madara turned his head away and absentmindedly refused the offer before he continued pushing his way through the horde of fan girls. Itachi stared after him even long after he was out of sight.

XXXXXX

After the initial shock had passed Itachi's earlier disinterest returned along with a bit of a foul mood. Again, he reasoned with himself that nothing of it mattered, his life was over. He firmly believed that the flow of time could not be altered comparable to a river's course: you could throw a rock in it and that would create a temporary disturbance but it would not change the water's destination. That rock was him, nothing but a minor flutter of disorder to be overlooked. So, he would go were fate took him and right now that was in an old ladies backyard to paint a fence. It did not lift his spirit.

He should take pleasure out of the fact that the life of a dismissible orphan should not mingle too much with that of the most despicable Uchiha known throughout history so he'd rather forgot about him. There was no true resentment towards the boy that would later grow out to be an infamous traitor his chakra's reaction was merely because it forced him to accept he was in far less safe times than he wanted to be. If only his roommates would stop babbling about how cute he was…, they hadn't stopped talking about him ever since he made his appearance.

He sat on his knees to paint the bottom end of the fence white, flattening the grass around it with his hand and pointedly ignoring the conversation around him along with the pain coming from his skin. Some of the paint had splattered on the hem of his sleeves and it gave rather ugly spots on the dark material but it was becoming hard to see clearly enough for painting with care.

Fuji voice hand suddenly touched his shoulder and he looked up to see the first reasonable thing to leave her mouth since that afternoon. _'Let's tell madam Chiharu we're calling it a day. It's getting dark and I'd rather not be late for dinner.'_ She signalled him to get up again, firmly convinced she didn't understand a thing from what she was saying.

Itachi cleaned the brush and closed the paint bucket as fast as he could. He wasn't hungry per se but tired, tired of being in the constant presence of others and of the unpleasant surprises that kept popping up.

 _'Ah, Itachi your hand!'_ Ayama suddenly shouted in his face. He quickly held his hands before his eyes and found… nothing wrong with them. Turning towards the girl with every intention of asking what was the matter he noticed her pulling something out of her sleeve. He tensed. It was thin, iron and ended in a somewhat sharp point. A vague memory of his mother jumped before his mind's eye. A nail file?

 _'You have a chipped nail. Here you go.'_ She held the thing in front of him. He briefly thought of turning her offer down not wanting to bother with something as silly as a chipped nail but to avoid unnecessary questions he took it with a nod.

It would be a lot easier if he knew how to use such a thing he silently cursed as he clumsily kept slipping of his nail. Ayama gave him a deadpanned look and was about to comment when they were interrupted by Fuji's appearance. _'Alright I settled things with madam Chiharu. We can go to dinner now.'_

He didn't want to go with them, he felt suffocated by them. He wanted to be alone. Not sure how to convince the message without words he simply said 'Not hungry' to them while pocketing the nail file. Fuji's mount fell open since he hadn't talked in days. She tried to sputter a reply but he turned around and walked away. Vaguely he sensed her taking a few steps after her but then she stopped and went the opposite way, leaving him to himself.

His mind was spinning and he didn't know why he felt that way, although he had a feeling it was just the fact that he was trapped in a time he didn't want to be in. But he wasn't ready to confront questions he had no answer to, such as how he got here, so he pushed them away and focused on the things he did know **.** His name was Itachi Uchiha, he had died at the hand of his brother, Sasuke Uchiha, and he had liked it, after his death he had woken up here. That was it, all he needed to know. His predicament wasn't that bad. For all he knew he could've woken up to a family who knew their child through and through. Surely he would have been caught within minutes.

It might also be the chakra he was now very aware of, it still roiled in distress but he didn't allow it to seep outside like before. The difference with his own chakra was hard to overcome and because of it he truly felt like he wasn't himself anymore. No matter how much he told himself it didn't matter and that he should be happy to have died, the loss of his most loyal companion, his chakra, shook him hard.

To clear his head he walked to the very edge of the compound his path lit by the last rays of the setting sun, staring into the forest that marked to border. A patrolling shinobi passed him without glance and that suited Itachi just fine. He didn't want people to notice him.

He passed the biggest warehouse of the compound, stood still behind it for a moment and then turned around and went back to its front. This was the place where all the weapons and armours of the Uchiha were stocked along with emergency food. While bringing his hand to his lips he wondered if taking a kunai was a good idea. Probably not. But seeing Madara Uchiha had reminded him of many things he didn't really want to remember. Like the constant vigilance he had kept up, how he had to keep his eyes even on the shadows he himself had lived in. For even they could betray him.

While previously he had basically pranced around the Uchiha compound with no worries and his guard down, now he felt on edge. He was not as safe as he thought he was and the gravity of the situation had only just started to settle in. He was weak, something he was unacquainted with. The experience was humbling and he'd rather change it. Some ninja gear would be the first step in getting rid of his current vulnerability.

He pressed his hands against the heavy steel door and before he pushed he knew there were people inside. Three of them, Uchiha checking up on the stock most likely. Common sense told him it was foolish to go in there but he wanted to see if he still had some of his previous stealth. If he would be caught the repercussion wouldn't be that grave. In their eyes he could pass as a hungry orphan stealing of their reserves, a crime worthy of a month of extra chores.

The door gave way smoothly which meant they made no noise, something Itachi was grateful for as he slunk into the dark warehouse. To fight the dark he left the door slightly open but even so the fading light of the day didn't help much and he could barely see the outline of the racks on the first row. His heart started picking up the pace, the loss of two of his most useful senses making him nervous. He tried to summon his sharingan but found that he couldn't. Another devastating blow. There were many things he disliked about his clan, the curse of hatred a prime example, but his sharingan had been dear to him, present since he became eight years old and the despite the gruesome way it was acquired the mangekyou was the last gift his cousin had imparted on him and also held a special place amongst his favoured skills.

Now he was left scrambling between artificial corridors that the high racks created. Almost had he turned on his heel and stepped back out but Itachi still had his pride, be it not so prominent as that of other members of his clan, so he went on. Uchiha's were generally perfectionists to the bone and did not appreciate disorder of any kind so even in a warehouse this size, everything was neatly stacked away in dark tightly sealed boxes. Itachi found this trait worked against him this time for it was hard read the labels and there was no other way of distinguishing the content.

His eyes were so close to the label that his forehead rested against the crate. F-l-o-u… flour. Damn it, he was in the wrong part. If it was Itachi's guess the Uchiha would exile the first person who would even think about placing weapon crates next to the food ones so there had to be some sort of divide, a logical structure.

He marched towards the main path again, were the space between the racks was wider. In the distance there was a soft light. The people he sensed before were over there at some sort of central point. He couldn't see it very clearly but he had a feeling that the main hall had a cross-shape, dividing the place in four pieces. First, he checked the one on his other side. Armour, different pieces in different sizes, lots of it. The oncoming sigh was suppressed, they were shinobi and it could take less than a frustrated breath of air in the distance to alert them, much less.

He briefly entertained the thought of using genjustu to hide his presence but it was immediately dismissed. Without his sharingan he had no idea if he could successfully cast genjutsu in this new body, the sad truth of having one from a very young age, and it was suicidal to cast genjutsu around Uchiha anyway.

So, he summoned a dainty wisp of chakra to his feet to cushion his steps, keeping a tight grip on it so it wouldn't expel into the air and alert the three ninja, and tiptoed towards the nearest path next to the main one. It was narrower and darker but he was also less likely to be seen. He struggled to keep his footing and breathing quiet, this body did not have the muscle memory to automatically be as silent as possible and. On the other hand he wondered if his chakra control had always been so precise, none of his chakra escaped his grasp. Still he was taking a great amount of risk with his loss of years spend training. But the fact that he _could_ take the risk made him almost giddy. Never in his career had he been able to afford the risk of being caught. Now he could because he was no longer a ninja, a thought he rejoiced in.

The light was closer and he found himself pressing his back against the cool iron of the rack towards vertical central path. The shinobi in the warehouse weren't using fire but some sort of lamp. A loss on his part because he couldn't use the flickering of the flame to mask his movements. He would have to run to the other side, briefly revealing himself, making himself vunrable, so timing it right was crucial. He had been focusing on his feet so much that he had lost track of the chakra signatures of the shinobi and he wondered if he had enough control to hold the chakra on his feet and reach for the chakra's nearby at the same time. Glancing at his sandals, he frowned. There were strange symbols on the floor, a line of characters running under his sandals and towards the central point.

Fuinjutsu. His heart hammered in his chest as he tried to decipher its purpose. Was it an alarm seal, a detection one, both? While he didn't see a visible effect of him standing on it that meant nothing. Seals could look meek as a mouse while ending up blowing you to bits. He shuffled his feet sideward and while doing so the ink smudged. His knowledge of seals wasn't anything extensive but he knew that wasn't supposed to happen. It meant that the seal hadn't been fortified yet so it wasn't complete.

A presence tickled his senses. Only his well-honed reflexes allowed him to stay perfectly still instead of startling.

It was right next to him on the main path and if his senses weren't lying to him they were getting closer.

It was not really the time to realise things but it dawned upon Itachi that the brain of this body was not nearly as brilliant as his own had been. This resulted in him coming up blank as he tried to figure out a possible escape route.

All remaining activities in his head were cut short when Itachi found himself staring into the green eyes of a man that was definitely not Uchiha with a companion that was equally un-Uchiha-like. Taken by surprise the man sluggishly reached out for the iron staff strapped on his back.

His eyes shot to a third man further down the hall who was painting on the floor. The situation then crashed into him like a ton of bricks, he had caught infiltrates trying to sabotage the Uchiha red handed and if he would live to tell the clan these three men would certainly die by painful means. And that's why, they were going to kill him.

While wondering if being killed _again_ would bother him terribly or not, the man with the iron staff decided to take matters in his own hands and swung at Itachi. With no time to think he dove under the swing and grabbed for the utility knife in his pocket only to grab the wrong thing. He cursed when his fingers clenched around the nail file and he scrambled to the left to avoid being stubbed on the head by an iron pole. He took his time to note the unskilful way the green-eyed man handled the staff.

The other man threw a kunai his way and the thing tore into the the heavy material of his skirt as he jumped away back into the reach of the staff wielder. The kunai met the ground with a loud clang. He ducked under the swing of the weapon again but that only gave his opponent more time to advance on him. His heartbeat pounded in his ears as Itachi's arm lashed out like a whip shoving the nail file deep inside his opponent's ear. Something gave and the staff dropped out of the man's hand. his lips opened as if in slow motion.

 _"AAAARRRG!"_

For a brief moment Itachi did nothing but watch as the man grabbed his ear and fell on the ground before he was kicked in his ribs and flew backwards against a rack. It did not budge so evidently it was Itachi who bounced of it and onto the ground. He groaned as he met the cool ground, his ribs and his back felt like they were on fire not to mention his burned skin. The man who was still standing was shouting for their third companion then ran towards Itachi. Acting way too fast for his bruised ribs to keep up he rolled out of the way when an axe kick came down on him. His hand brushed against something, the kunai from before. Another kick came his way, this time he let it hit him and it hit his stomach painfully yet he curled around the appendage and stabbed through the ankle. He saw the man scream.

They were young, he suddenly realized, and untrained in fighting probably having preferred stealth above anything else. It was the reason why they overlooked things, why he had a semblance of a chance to defeat them.

He pumped an excess amount of chakra trough his legs and let most of it escape his grip in the hope that it would alert nearby Uchiha. This boosted his jump upward and made his opponent lose his footing as his leg was violently swung into the air. They landed in an ungraceful hump with Itachi on top, a kunai firmly lodged into the now dead man's throat.

Blood coated his fingers, loosening the grip on his kunai. He rose to his feet his senses telling him it wasn't over.

Goose bumps arose on his skin like weed sprang up in a garden. His eyes trailed down the corridor and met those of the third member, the so called Daichi. He was different, Itachi realized as the man gazed upon him with practised indifference while turning a small sword around. His fluffy reddish hair and big blue eyes somehow made him seem childish and innocent but the way he stood there was not. His stance seemed relaxed but was ready to spring in action and the way his eyes calmly slid over the flailing body of his only living teammate spoke of experience with death, a lot of it.

"He has lost all sense of direction." The ninja noted as if narrating a documentary about migrating salmon. "You punctured his ear and now he's alive but can't tell up from down, pretty clever." Itachi remained quiet while trying to secure his grip on the slippery kunai.

A hand closed around his wrist while words were whispered from behind him. "I don't think so." Fingers started applying pressure and his wrist gave way with a sickening 'crack' his kunai dropped to the ground. White hot pain raced through his head. Had dislocating joints always hurt so much?

With no time to think he once again pushed chakra to his legs and threw his entire weight backwards. His head banged against that of his opponent and he heard his teeth clack against each other. He grabbed for his utility knife ready to turn around and stab the man but his opponent was faster and Itachi only just managed to avoid an impaled liver by throwing himself to the left. While his liver had been spared, he did receive a nasty cut on his side that immediately started bleeding heavily.

His opponent advanced on him again, all the while his head screamed at him to run because he knew his opponent was stronger than him, he knew he would die should he face the man in honest single combat. So, he threw himself on the ground and rolled underneath one of the racks. Emerging on the other side, he immediately took note of the lack of light.

The other man dover after him and Itachi rolled under another rack again. It turned into a game of cat and mouse, running around the warehouse, only he was an injured and tiring mousse and on the losing hand. He had to do something because, no he didn't want to die, at least not like this. Itachi had too much pride to die at the hands of such amateurs even if the redhead was slightly more trained.

Instinct told him to find higher ground, to expand his eyesight. Without even thinking about chakra control and the possible limits of his new body he latched himself on the metal of the racks with ease and started to make for the top. When he had almost reached the it, he readied himself for one final leap. Then his eye caught something red. The enemy was emerging behind the rack, also climbing it and ready to strike down Itachi, for good. It was too late to stop himself and just before his foot landed on the metal to push himself the last bit of the way, straight into the arms of the enemy, an imaged filled his head. An image of a blonde kid slipping of a tree when trying to scale it without hands and a black-haired boy whose tree splintered under the strain of his chakra. _Use too much and the tree will break around the point of contact._

All his remaining chakra rushed into his foot, pulsating painfully underneath his skin. When he made contact the iron didn't splinter or anything that elaborate. Instead he felt a shock go through him and the metal dented underneath his sandal. The force send him backwards and he was barely able to see his opponent's blue eyes widen as the rack tilted backwards. A second longer and he would have made it to the top but as it was he was halfway there and his body got crushed between two heavy metal racks.

The force of the chakra output in his foot had thrown Itachi backwards. Then it was left up to gravity to make him fall down. His chin hit the ground first and he lost consciousness before his teeth clacked shut.

In between his fall and his unfortunate rendezvous with the ground Itachi realized something. He could not escape himself, he would never be anything _but_ a shinobi.

 **What do you think? What can be improved? I'm taking a lot of liberties here I know.**

 **Things that might need explaining:**

 **Itachi mentions a genjutsu on that scale isn't possible. Here I am assuming that Itachi does not know of the moon eye plan. Alright, I know we all want to believe Itachi is an infallible god and everything but he was also undoubtedly** **loyal to Konoha thus he would have reported on something as big as the infinite tsukuyomi. Seeing as he didn't I think it's reasonable to say he might not have known.**

 **I mention Itachi genjutsu prowess can solely be credited to his sharingan. While I accept that this may not be a correct or popular theory, we have rarely if never seen Itachi in action without it and since he was so young when he achieved the sharingan I believe he might have taken some shortcuts into becoming the genius we know.**

 **Perhaps the most pressing matter: Itachi is female in my story but still sees himself as a he. Why did I write it as such? Simply because I think it's funny and it benefits my plot.**

 **Have anymore questions? please don't be afraid to ask!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Alright guys, next chapter! I do have to warn you: it's a monster. I hope I don't lose any readers with it because I know it's bad. Well let's just get on with it right...**

 **But before that I'd like to thank: and enbi for their reviews!**

 **XXXXXX**

A man in his thirties flew to the ground rather harshly but got back up almost immediate. Albeit with a grimace.

"Oof Madara, you are becoming too much for me." He sounded jovial but Madara himself wasn't so sure about his sensei's good grace. It was only recently that he had been allowed to show his full strength by his parents and it must be a blow to the man's pride to be defeated by a boy he could take on a few weeks prior. Early on he had been taught that the men didn't appreciate a kid showing them up and taking the lead, no matter how good this kid was so he had been forced to appear good for his age yet not _too_ good. But now that he was older there was no point in hiding his abilities anymore. He was a man now, though his mother would disagree. Still he had to keep the clansmen content and _not_ afraid of him and his power.

So he chose his words carefully. "Hmm, it's only normal I'd advanced quickly under your tutelage, I've improved lots over the last four years."

Subtlety, his mother had always stressed the use of subtlety. Sadly it didn't come natural to him, but he learned and hoped the explanation with a quick compliment on behalf of the man wasn't too blunt.

"Ah," The man nodded, "But you have improved at an unusual speed these last two weeks."

 _Unusual,_ on the inside he cringed at the word but on the outside he bowed lightly without a change in his expression. "It's getting dark, shall we call it a day?" He said, changing the subject. His sensei nodded to him, grabbing his water flask and taking a swig. "It would seem like the best idea."

"Alright, good evening sensei." Then he walked out of the training grounds at a leisure pace, the dry earth making crunching noises under his feet.

The sun was setting, letting night take over and with it came a breeze that cooled the sweat on his skin. Dinner wouldn't be ready yet as his father preferred to eat late, a walk was in order. And after dinner he would train some more, only not with his sensei. He preferred training by himself or with Izuna.

He allowed a sigh to slip past his lips. It had been a frustrating task, hiding his power from his clansman, still his mother was adamant that he kept his full potential to himself **.** But while it was a bit shameful to admit, he was the kind of person who enjoyed boasting about his talents yet he also always listened to his mother. Lately though, he got the feeling she was keeping him in the dark about some things, there was some sort of trouble and she wasn't telling him about it.

It were the Senju no doubt, they were being more active lately. His mother needn't worry too much, the Uchiha wouldn't fall. Yes, there would be more deaths but the Uchiha in a whole would keep existing, keep thriving. It was the only solace he had for the deaths of his brothers.

He passed the warehouse and briefly glanced at the enormous building. They would be using it again soon when the Daimyo's would set them up against the Senju again.

Lost in thought about war and peace at the same time, he almost missed it. A brief flare of chakra passed him, so small it barely tickled his senses but it was enough. He saw a nearby patrol stalk his way towards the building, he had sensed it too. Nobody used chakra this close to the border, it was an unspoken rule to avoid having to check every burst of chakra.

He nodded at the shinobi and fell in line behind him. He was an acquaintance of his father but Madara couldn't think of a name. The iron door was pushed open wide the fresh moon did almost nothing to illuminate the space inside but in the distance a faint light was shining. Without a signal both ninja turned on their sharingan and the room became much clearer to them.

They stepped inside, careful to not make any noise as they went straight towards the light, it wouldn't do to alert a potential enemy of their presence

Somewhere hallway a blanket of the stench of blood covered them. "Madara-san," The shinobi hissed low, "Get Tajima-sama." It was then that he felt something familiar. A volatile, strangely out of tune chakra he had felt before that day. A (rather big) part of him was curious and wanted to stay but his more professional side understood the urgency of the situation and he shunshined back toward the door. The chakra it took no doubt alerting a good deal of his clansmen nearby.

 **XXXXX**

Itachi's stare was blank. Of all the people that could be visiting him in his dreams, _this man_ seemed like one of the most improbable. And yet there he sat in all his blond glory on a lush couch, reading a scroll. The Yondaime, the fourth hokage of the leaf.

"Bloody uchiha! I'll crush you, I'll rip you apart, I'll-"

Itachi raised his head to look at the kyuubi who's voice roared thunderously through the vast monochrome space. Its chains rattled as it pushed against its prison bars.

"Oh, don't mind him." As the Yondaime spoke the Kyuubi became nothing but background noise.

It was the first time he had spoken in the hours they had sat across each other, at least it felt like hours. Like some invisible restraint had been released since the silence between the two men had been broken. Itachi began politely formulating his questions.

"Hokage-sama, what are we doing here?"

The former Hokage looked up from his scroll. "Me? I've always been here. As for you I have no idea. On a side note, just Minato will do."

Itachi shifted in his seat. An idea formed in his head but it wasn't quite fully developed yet.

"Here? Where is here Minato-sama?"

The fourth send him a deadpanned look then ran a hand through his wild golden hair while smiling. "Uchiha and their painfully stiff formality. I was a friend of your father once you know."

Itachi didn't reply, after all he had not answered his question. If his persistent stare was a little rude it could be excused on the other man's scrutiny on his politeness. Minato's smile became increasingly uncomfortable as silence stretched on, until he gave under the pressure.

"To be honest I do not know, Itachi, it simply is. And would you mind turning of the Mangekyou, please. You seem ready to kill me."

Itachi had no idea he had been looking like that at the most respectable man in shinobi history, safe from Hashirama Senju himself. Immediately he forced himself to lean back in his seat and turn of his sharingan.

Picking up the conversation again he calmly said, "What is it doing here?" While nodding towards the kyuubi.

Minato shrugged, scroll laying forgotten on his lap. "We are a package deal."

He didn't bother to ponder on the strange answer.

"Shouldn't you be in the Shinigami's belly?" He asked bluntly

"You ask a lot of questions. How do you even know I'm really here?" The fourth rebuked albeit in a good-natured manner with an open smile. Itachi realised he had a point. This was a dream, a fact he had forgotten. But could he be blamed? It was unlike any dream he ever had.

"I suppose I don't. Asking you questions about time travel would be pointless too, right?" There, he managed to spit it out. For a brief moment, he had entertained the thought of the fourth being involved in his ordeal but now he realized how stupid that was. The man had died when he had been around six years old.

"Time travel? I suppose, it's possible, with the right seals." The blond's reply cleared his head like a breeze of fresh spring air. Suddenly it all made sense. Why he was here, what the fourth was doing here. His brain was searching for an explanation, feeding him information he already knew. Minato was here because he represented the possibility of time travel. The fuinjutsu involving his hiraishin used space and time manipulation with the emphasis on time. It still didn't explain why the fox demon was there but he guessed it had some hidden symbolic meaning, his mind was complex after all.

Content with the silence Itachi allowed himself to relax in his seat, it was only a dream after all. No need to remain uptight.

 **XXXXX**

"But how?" Elder Kirashi almost shouted through the room. It grew quiet with the gravity of the question, not because it was a difficult one but because they had _no_ answer for it.

A man situated at the head of the table point spoke. "We don't know." The admission sounded like an accusation coming from the clan head.

Silence settled upon the meeting room once again. Then a man on the far left, clad in armour took out a pen and a fresh notebook. It looked so foreign on the wild looking warrior and yet nobody seemed to notice. "Run me through this again so I can address the flaws in our security system." He commanded. As the clan head's troop leader it was his job to lead the shinobi of the Uchiha.

A small mousy man from across the table cleared his throat. "The survivor is still in interrogation. We don't have all th-" "There are no flaws in our security!" A tall man spat. "Our system has held up for years without fault."

"And yet we find ourselves with three infiltrates, two currently dead and nobody has heard or seen a thing except a little girl who wasn't supposed to be there." The only woman in the room rebuked with that unsettling smile of hers. She was the wife of the clan head and she continued. "What are you suggesting Yuudai-san? That there is a traitor among us?" Murmuring broke out around the table but nobody really spoke up not even elder Yuudai. It seemed that the Uchiha weren't ready to faze the thought of a traitor.

The short man changed the topic. "And the seal?"

"Unlike anything we have ever encountered." Tajima, the clan head announced, frown present on his face. "But our seal specialist has confirmed it to be some sort of space manipulator with a one way purpose. Warehouse number two, or at least a great part of it, would have been sealed away, never to be unsealed again. Their purpose was not to steal from us but to sabotage us." The mumbling sounded more outraged now.

"What about the girl?" Elder Kirashi piped in, while stroking his beard.

Tajima was quick to respond, expecting the question. "She is currently being treated for a broken wrist, a shattered shin, a flash wound on her side and a few bruised justu seem to have been used, no weapons except a nail file, a utility knife and a kunai that's presumably from the enemy. She survived on pure instincts and a heavy dose of luck. We haven't yet decided on how to deal with her." The occupants of the room nodded. With no material left to discuss Tajima called an end to the meeting.

"Raido, make sure to look for those openings in our patrolling system I want to rule out the possibility before we go looking for a traitor. Dismissed."

 **XXXXX**

His dream changed for the worst in a matter of seconds. From chatting pleasantly with the fourth Hokage to drinking tea with Orochimaru.

"It's sad really, now there are only two Uchiha left and between you, Tobi and Sasuke you were definitely the most likeable." His sickly sly voice made Itachi's skin crawl and he inwardly pleaded for this dream to be over. But he couldn't wake himself up from this nightmare so he dropped all his facades to simply glare at the man seated before him.

If there was one man he disliked enough to wish him dead, this was him.

Orochimaru seemed perfectly comfortable with carrying the conversation by himself. Laughing dauntingly after sipping on his tea. "Kukuku, Oh well I suppose I should be happy. You can no longer prevent me from taking that sharingan of your brother. His eyes aren't as precious as yours but I suppose they'll do."

Itachi's vision became red. He had controlled himself long enough, had surrounded himself with people he disliked and had never acted hostile towards them. But now… now he was dead, now he was free. The mangekyou burned in his sockets as he summoned amaterasu.

"You will _never_ get to my little brother!" He responded with a venom Orochimaru's snakes couldn't hope to possess. "Die!" A teacup met it's tragic end when it slipped from the fingers of its owner.

Amaterasu swallowed everything, turning the word into a black abyss that rained ash. Itachi panted from sheer rage as he stood in the now hollow place. Satisfaction barely sunk in when he heard that voice again, somewhat deeper and more menacing than before. " _tut-tut Itachi that's where you are wrong."_

An enormous white snake rose up like a worm crawling to the surface. It loomed over Itachi then opened its jaws wide. With a loud retching noise, it emptied its throat. A grey sludge dropped on the ground, dribbled off its tong and fangs. An ugly formless creatures moved inside it, their clawed hands ripping to the goo and their screeching cutting through the abyss like razor blades. Itachi only had to look at it for a second to know, this was evil in its purest form. Terror made his body numb and his mind freeze up. Then the thing started to grow, rising up and gaining shape. Two arms, two legs and two eyes, mangekyou eyes.

Before him stood Sasuke in scarlet armour, blood running down his cheeks and a sneer in place. For one second Itachi could behold his brother before his brother's arrogant scowl was transmuting his face into a different shape, the lines and wrinkles becoming more pronounced before melting together like wax near a flame, re-shaping him into something else, someone else. Madara Uchiha regarded him coolly.

Bile rose in his throat and he chocked. "No!" And a shout, of the likes he had never used before tore through the ever-growing darkness. "SASUKE!"

His eyes opened. In the distant corners of his mind he could still hear the echo of his call to his brother.

It was dark but not like in the warehouse, he knew that right away. A curtain fluttered next to him and he sniffed the fresh air of the night, grateful for it purifying presence. He didn't bother with looking around even though he didn't know where he was, it wasn't an unusual occurrence as of late. There were people nearby their chakra signatures dulled by whatever medication they put him on, pain was also absent. A sigh escaped his lips and even that strained him, robbed him of his energy as if he was breathing out not only air but also his life.

He was tired in a bone deep, aching way. It hadn't appeared overnight, no, it had nestled in his core after the massacre and was only left to fester afterwards and after each pointless murder, it grew. Sasuke had been the only one who kept him going. He had needed his little brother to give him purpose as much as he liked to think the opposite. But his brother wasn't here, he wasn't even born yet.

There was nothing left to do but waste away and what had once seemed like his salvation now seemed so horribly empty.

 **XXXXX**

Madara wanted to be happy, well he was but he wanted to be _just_ happy. Fate would have it though, that in his life things were never just what they were. On one side, he was glad because she had woken up today and because of that it was evident that the incident of two days ago hadn't killed her.

His surprise had been great when he had arrived on the scene with his father. There were two corpses, one who had met an unfortunate end between two of the heavy metal racks, and a flailing man who wasn't able to remain on his feet for more than two seconds. Somewhere further down they had found the girl lying unconscious on the floor. At first, he thought she was another corpse, lying in a puddle of her own blood until he felt her chakra, still running through her system. Conclusions had been drawn rather quickly. She had walked in on three saboteurs and had fended them off to keep her life. How an untrained slip of a girl managed such a feat, he had no clue.

A case like hers was unheard of. Not because an Uchiha did something heroic for his clan but because it was a girl who did it. Women in the Uchiha were not allowed to fight in general and received no shinobi training whatsoever. There were a few exceptions but from what Madara heard they were rather tragic cases. So naturally her story spread like wildfire through the clan. He liked the story, the idea of having even the weakest of their clan protect it and he wanted to keep it at just that but he couldn't.

Because on the other hand there was something wrong with the whole event. Something he was missing and the whole thing seemed a bit farfetched… to be honest it was not him who saw it first. It was an argument between his parents that had aroused his own suspicions.

It wasn't often that his parents disagreed on something, although it did happen occasionally. They weren't yelling at each other, which he was grateful for, and to be honest neither of them seemed really angry or upset. They just had two different views on the girl's story and both believed their own to be the right one but didn't consider it to be worth fighting over. His father's had initially been the same as his own: an incredible stroke of luck along with a bit of talent she inherited from the clan, that's what got her through. But the words of his mother made him doubt that. _Luck doesn't exist to that extend_ _and even if it did. How did she get that red headed shinobi stuck up there?_

He was like that, there was doubt in everything. A life filled with buts. Like how he was sure he had a lot of skill. But was it enough to protect his family? He knew he loved his clan but he could hardly hold a friendly conversation with any of them. He knew that peace was impossible… but he still longed for it.

He sighed and told himself it didn't really matter. So what if she received some training? No harm done there, it saved their resources and her life. Of course, there was the question of who was training young girls in the shinobi arts and for what purposes but he pushed it back into the back of his mind because it was not his headache to deal with. He wasn't clan leader just yet.

 _It's none of my business._ He told himself. _I'm not interested._ But then why did his feet carry him towards the infirmary where she was at.

For a moment, he stood there berating himself for being so stupid. What had he planned to do? Prance around the infirmary like a total creeper? Plus, there were sick people in there, kami knows how much he hated those or rather the germs they had. It grossed him out. But then he remembered something. One of his cousins was being treated there. It was nothing serious, a small concussion that would barely take any healing. Madara was long due for a visit.

He was not interested in spying on the girl, he was just visiting his poor cousin. He told himself. And it wasn't the high season for disgusting snot noses anyway.

He was very good at lying to himself.

The door of the newly renovated building opened smoothly and he was immediately met with the typical sterile hospital smell . He knew the layout of this building by heart even though he didn't come here often. Madara needed to be on the first floor where the recovering patients were at.

He walked through the building as if it was perfectly normal for him to be there while he wasn't sure if that was true. There was a short pre-determined time for visitors and to be honest he didn't know when that was. But as he made his way up no one stopped him. A young nurse glanced his way but quickly turned the other cheek when she saw who he was and a medic even stopped to bow for him when they crossed paths but nobody asked him why he was there. _Nobody_ questioned the clan heir.

Except for his cousin.

Yoroko smiled at him when he approached his bed. There were no curtains to offer a semblance of privacy in the hall Yoroko was stationed at. Only the more serious cases had those, the worst even having separate rooms. But not a single pair of eyes was on them as he greeted his cousin. "Mh, well aren't you looking fine there?" Still he didn't believe for a second that their conversation wasn't being listened into, they were a ninja clan after all.

His cousin grin stretched further as he noticed Madara's eyes scanning the room. He spoke loudly. "Little cousin! It's about time you showed up. I almost thought you forgot about me. Come here and sit next to me."

Madara was startled by the request. Yes, he usually got along fine with Yoroko but it wasn't as if they were that close. There was an age gap between them that had made sure of that. It was only recently that they started to hang out with each other more and usually only to spar or trade information. Still Yoroko was a likeable and spontaneous person, the latter was not a common trait among the clan.

"Sure." He replied rather demurely as he awkwardly sat himself on the bed next to Yoroko.

"Oh don't look so shitfaced, little cousin." An arm was slung over his shoulder, pressing him closer to his cousin's torso. Madara tried to supress the stiffening in his shoulder, with the emphasis on _tried_.

"You seem to be doing well." Madara said with a terse voice. Yoroko's actions didn't really bother him, it was how he allowed it to catch him off guard.

"Hn? Oh yeah, I'm almost better. Just a little light sensitive." The answer was jovial and completed with a confident smirk.

 _That's why it's so dark in here._ He thought as he let his eyes wander again. He almost yelped as he felt lips press against his ear.

And there it was.

"So, what is my favourite cousin doing here at this time? Looking for something? She's a bit further down by the window by the way." The words were spoken so soft even Madara had a hard time hearing them, let alone potential eavesdroppers.

Madara had always wondered how such a boisterous personality could make a good spy but now he was starting to get it. His eyes darted over to the nearest window that had not been blinded for Yoroko's sake and he was met with the sight of a weak looking, under-fed girl sitting up and talking to a much older man. Her eyes, sharp as razors, were far from _weak_ looking though as they steadily held the gaze of the soldier standing in front of her.

"How-" he started asking equally quit as his cousin had whispered the tip but Yoroko stopped him by hissing in his ear, "Careful, she can read your lips." Madara sealed his shut immediately.

Before he could even start to consider how to proceed with their conversation Yoroko pulled a newspaper from his bedside table.

"Have you read the news yet? There's this article in here, I need you to read." His voice was as loud as ever again as he pulled open the newspaper and held it in front of them, successfully covering their faces from view.

Of course, Madara already read the newspaper, the civilian news often held clues about oncoming wars after all, but that wasn't the point. While no sensible shinobi would believe that he came here just to read the news with his cousin, it did have its use. Everybody would know that they were trying to conceal their conversation and conceal their conversation they did. Who cared if it was obvious as long as it worked?

"How do you know she can read lips?" Madara whispered curiously.

"I've seen her do it. Try as she might to hide it."

He hummed in response then he stiffened. Here he was, blatantly asking his cousin for information. In other words, he was admitting he didn't really come for his cousin at all.

The shame sunk to his stomach as he tried to mutter a somewhat acceptable apology, since denying it was no longer a valid option. "Oh… eh, I really was planning t-" Yoroko stopped him in his tracks though.

"Don't bother, I wouldn't visit you in the infirmary for an idiotic training accident either. Though I hadn't thought you'd see through that bullshit story about her and notice something's not right here. Way to go little cousin, you're more observant than I thought you were."

Madara shrugged as if it was nothing but the truth was he only started questioning it after his parents had their disagreement. He wasn't stupid, far from in fact, but he felt comfortable at home so he wasn't prone to questioning the motives of his fellow Uchiha.

He shoved the leftover shame aside in favour of sating his curiosity. "What else do you know." He continued in a hushed tone.

"Hm, not much. She being interrogated now, that's why she's so far from the others. I haven't been able to figure out what the soldier is asking but her answers are always short and clear. Have you heard anything from you father?"

Madara shook his head. "No, he believes it's nothing. Mother is doubtful though. Do you think the elders are involved?"

A wry smile appeared on Yoroko's lips. "That's what I wanted to ask you. But seriously, it's possible. I just can't connect the dots though. So far, we have a suspiciously skilled little girl, an attempted sabotage and an unexplainable hole in our patrolling system. How do these come together? Something's not adding up."

Madara stayed silent because he didn't know either.

They both contented themselves with sneaking glances at her until the soldier left. Then both promised to tell each other as soon as they knew more and he left soon after, none the wiser.

 **XXXXXXX**

Night was falling but Itachi's mind wasn't set on sleeping. His head felt like a cluster of thoughts and at the same time he felt nothing at all, which disturbed him. If you stopped feeling guilty for murdering people you were just one step closer to rejoicing in it. Apathy was a dangerous thing and it surrounded him throughout his waking time. Only when that interrogator had stated his purpose had he felt a sliver of excitement. The situation had made his old shinobi-self take over, born from the most dangerous of infiltration missions. He had deflected each question with an almost unfeigned nonchalance and with practised ease he had slipped a little lie in there. When the man had asked what had brought Itachi to the warehouse he had simply pretended to be there for food. His starved and mangy looks suited that image quite fine. The man had been depressingly easy to convince. All it took was looking down in shame and stammering a bit and the man had practically skipped out of the room. Had he not noticed how he had suddenly traded his uninterested, confident demeanour for that of a weak and nervous one. The change was so abrupt any half-trained interrogator should have noticed it. But he supposed he was being underestimated, him being a girl and all that

Then _he_ had to appear. The lingering presence of his chakra still send shivers down his spine. His blood had run cold in their veins and his skin suddenly felt shrivelled up, too small as if he was going to burst through it. His mind already told him this was not the man who had claimed to be Madara in his time, the real thing was too prideful to ever hide behind a mask. But who carried who's name did not matter the fact was that both were powerful and traitorous, the only difference was that now he was defenceless while in the akatsuki he would have put up quite the fight if 'Tobi' ever decided to try and get rid of him. Here in the confinements of the Uchiha clan he was like a bird without wings at the mercy of a cat and its games.

The stares the boy had threw at him had put him on edge. He knew something.

But what had disturbed him most was that for a moment, just for a split second, he had thought it was Sasuke right there, in the past with him. Their chakra signatures were… so alike. He didn't want to think about it.

"Chie-san, I know it's late but Itsura-sama wishes to speak to you." A somewhat chubby man smiled apologetically as he startled Itachi out of his thoughts. This was the medic, if he recalled correctly.

"Of course." He choked out of his swollen throat while sitting himself upright in his bed. They had healed his most of his wounds, even the burned skin he got before the whole incident but they had decided to let this neck heal naturally as it was merely bruised. This made him wonder why they hadn't bothered to heal him before. The burn wounds had been painful even for him, they must have been unbearable for Chie.

Perhaps it was because she was an orphan, a nobody? Still he considered it a cruelty to let a young girl run around like that.

"I'll go get her." The medic quickly hopped away, waking him from his thoughts once again.

Itachi had no idea who this Itsura person was but it had to be someone of importance if the way the young medic had addressed the person was anything to go by. As he ran through the names of important historical women he knew of this time, chakra started to seep through the area.

It was everywhere except where he was. Genjustu, but he wasn't in it. Had he ever been able to feel a genjutsu's layout this clearly when he wasn't being subjected to one?

A woman strode towards him with her heavily layered deep red kimono swishing around her. The medic was nowhere to be seen when she sat herself on a stool as if it was some sort of throne. Her obsidian hair brushed the ground below her and Itachi didn't think he had ever seen anyone with such wild and thick hair that still managed to look alluring.

"Girl, what's your name." Her face looked calm and inviting and immediately had Itachi on edge. After years of spying and infiltrating he could recognise fellow spies on sight and he would bet his right arm that she was one.

"Itachi." He was sure she had read his file so there had been no reason to ask for his name. Giving a supposedly fake name was a message, one that said 'I don't trust you'.

She smiled as if she hadn't received it and said, "Well Itachi, I have a few questions to ask before I get down to business." Part of him was tempted to say he had already been questioned but in all honesty, that had been child play, this woman was much sharper.

While meeting her dark eyes Itachi tonelessly said, "As you wish".

"Who taught you?" Followed directly after.

"I beg your pardon?" It wasn't like he hadn't expected the question but he hadn't expected her to be so direct about it either.

She smiled discreetly then continued as if they were talking about the weather. "My husband calls it 'a strong survival instinct with a little luck', I call it 'quick thinking and chakra control'. You might fool others with your hungry, scared child act but I for one won't buy it. Your kills were no accident so I'll ask again: Who taught you?"

The truth wouldn't do in a situation like this, fortunately lying came natural to him but first he would confirm her suspicions because there was no point in telling her that he didn't know how to kill.

"What a nifty genjustu." He commented airily. "I assume you casted it to keep prying ears out."

Once again, her reaction was not as expected, she smiled. "Oh? You noticed that? You are quite the sensor"

He merely hummed in response. It was true though he had only just realized it himself. This body was better at sensing than he had ever been and he was pretty sure 'Chie' had never trained it. It was curious, being able to read the very nature of chakra, feeling it's behaviour as it turns into a justu, he could work with that.

Her persistent stare continued to pierce him.

"Nobody taught me," He eventually stated, "I taught myself." Silently he hoped Shisui would forgive him for dismissing his teachings like that.

"Impossible." She accused.

"Not at all," Itachi rebuked, "I peeked on the boy's training. Especially on the younger classes." And he prayed to whatever kami was out there that not all Uchiha kids had private lessons from their parents in these times.

But Itsura didn't seem to think anything strange of his claims instead she said, "I see. What jutsu do you know, if any?"

The question made Itachi halt for a moment. He knew plenty of justu but how many of them could he pull off without his sharingan and even more pressing, how many of them could he pull off with his current chakra level. The list became depressingly short.

"Not many." He answered vaguely not willing to put all his cards on the table.

The woman didn't frown or showed that his answer bothered her in any way. There was a calm and collected air around her. She was in no hurry to get answers out of him.

Sighing and already tiring of their conversation he decided to cut to the chase. "With all due respect, what did you come here for?" After all he still had no idea who she was or what to expect from her.

Again, she smiled sweetly, dangerously. "Forgive me for answering a question with a question but do you know about the sponsoring system?"

Oh yes, he had 'heard' his roommates talk about the dream of every orphan and lower classed kid. "This is about how wealthier clan members can financially support the poorer kids in their training." At least he thought it was something like that. For boys that meant getting good training and becoming a successful shinobi, for girls it was a way of marrying into a higher classed family because a wife with a sharingan was more important than a wife with a title.

The woman before him nodded. "Yes, but why do we do this?" He had to think about that for a moment. "it's a power play..." Unattached children were so easy to influence.

"Precisely, these kids will be grateful or at least in some way indebted to you. You build alliances so to speak."

A frown formed on his face. "All shinobi should be absolutely loyal to their leader." He murmured. The chaos it would have caused if such a system existed in his village, the could be overthrown. Except… it did exist, thoughts of Danzo and his brainwashed soldiers passed him by.

"Absolutely. So, do you see my problem? The highest families are in a constant game of tug of war over these lesser children in the hopes of one day overruling the clan leader enough to present their own leader." Still, the conversation seemed to interest the woman little and she regarded him as composed as ever, waiting for him to speak.

"I see no reason for you to be telling me this." He mentioned honestly.

This time she laughed. "Well Itachi, trust that I have plenty." After a moment of silence, she continued. "But this is the one you should know of. The head family too plays this game and I am acquiring our next _ally_."

He raised an eyebrow passively **.** "You want me to keep an eye out for the clan leader."

Itsura, shook her head. "No, my husband has been defending his position successfully for a while now and I believe most recognize it as a lost cause. It's my son I worry about. I have already noticed some trying to sink their claws into him, trying to influence him."

She was Madara's mother. He shouldn't be surprised, the boy looked like her. Her words sunk in. People were trying to keep Madara from becoming clan leader which was maybe a good idea. No, he knew that wouldn't do, Madara Uchiha had not only tried to destroy Konoha he had also helped create it. The future mustn't change, that was just too dangerous. Konoha had to be built so that Sasuke could be born in it, otherwise he and his family might not even exist.

He considered her and what she was asking. While he was doing so she took the liberty to continue explaining. "I'm offering you a chance to change your life and become more than just an orphan. I will allow your little intrigue towards the shinobi arts to continue existing and I'll offer you a dignified position to do so. All of that for doing no more than what any clan member should do for their head family."

His priority was Sasuke, that would never change. Right now, he was such a distance removed from his brother, in multiple ways, that the things he could do for him were severely limited. The most imminent thing was making sure history went according to plan to make sure his brother was born. To be honest he doubted the Uchiha heir would need his help to become clan leader but just to put his mind at ease he could become a bystander, watching history being made before his eyes. It was an interesting prospect, way better than spending the rest of his days wondering what to do in a life without his little brother. He understood that the woman was trying to make him into a pawn, but he had always been one, willingly so.

"I accept." He said without hesitation.

She pulled a scroll from her sleeves. A storage scroll, he recognised.

"Good." She held it out to him. When he took it she began talking once more.

"Well the-" Itsura's words were cut short when a cat jumped through the open window and meowed whiningly. It was one of the strays that fed on the Uchiha clan's hospitality. Apparently, in this time, the cat summoning scroll was in the position of the clan so to keep their contracts happy the Uchiha fed all cats that wandered upon their compound, be it summon cats or not.

"I'm pretty sure you're not allowed in here, that's unhygienic. Unless… Is it yours?" The woman asked him. Itachi looked at the dirty brown cat with stupid looking green eyes. There was something in them that called to him somehow.

"Yes." He sighed, putting the scroll next to him to pat the matted fur of the cat. It purred happily.

"I'll leave it with you then." Then she stood up curtly and walked away, but not before saying, "Your instructions are within that scroll."

Long after she'd gone he remained awake. He had found his drive and one words was whispered past his lips as it sounded in the silent, dark room.

"Sasuke."

 **XXXXXX**

 **So that was it and as you have noticed, this was a horribly boring chapter... but you have been introduced to some important characters, some who'm are still unnamed.**

 **Explanations:**

 **Itachi: You can probably guess it but the Itachi I'm writing isn't entirely sane. It is impossible to kill your entire family without at least some mental trauma. His insanity won't be anything drastic though, it just translates into anxiety and a deep rooted obsession with his little brother. With this chapter I have finished of Itachi's disinterest with this obsession, from now on the 'I don't care and won't do anything' Itachi is gone. Next chapter he will begin developing a skill set and the plot will deepen.**

 **Madara: In other stories I've read that include Madara there can be found two types of Madara's: the totally psychopathic type who likes nothing more than to kill and torture or the 'I'm a super sensitive and sweet guy whom you can change as you wish so that I won't betray the leaf village' type. Both make me want to puke... not to criticize other people their work (I'm not good enough to do that). I don't think it's unrealistic to have a Madara who won't become a traitor but I don't think he's the kind of man who talks about his feelings openly with others (Except maybe with Izuna, but still). Madara of the catch won't be entirely sane either (none of my characters are) and very socially awkward. I've based him of the Madara/Hashirama episode were he seems a bit bratty and cocky but totally good** **natured since he's still young. Slowly he will change more into the mature Madara but right now he's still mostly innocent. What a lot of people seem to forget is that at a point he had wanted peace, he had wanted Konoha. He couldn't enjoy it because his brother had died. I often wonder what would have become of Itachi if Sasuke had died, do you think he would have leveled the leaf to the ground to get to Danzo? What I'm trying to say is, experiences shape a person so no was is just good or just bad.**

 **Sorry for that horribly long AN!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey guys! Guess what! The catch has oficially reached 20 000 words and thus this is the longest story I have ever writen (well I had one of 20 000 words before but abandoned it right after) If I make it to the next chapter you'll know I'm really serious about this! Keep your fingers crossed!**

 **XXXXXX**

Oh, he did not like this. He touched his ears. No, he definitely did not like this. When he had read Itsura's instructions he had been slightly surprised but otherwise hadn't felt opposed to it.

One of the matriarch's retainers, that was his new role. It was a blessing he had somewhat liked history when he had been younger otherwise he wouldn't have understood what it meant and what it included. Having a retainer was an old status thing for the women in the royal families of ninja clans. It literally meant high servant and that about summoned up the job too. Except that he didn't have to cook or clean and he wasn't in charge of all her other servants or something of that sort but rather he served only her, was at her side most of the time and represented her at social gatherings when she couldn't make it.

He was also in charge of her protection within the clan, it was the only respected ninja career woman of this time could practise and only because having a man at a woman's side for her protection might prove to be problematic. Especially if said man would be spending more time with her than her own busy husband. He had known what it meant, he just hadn't thought about what that meant for _him_.

A retainer reflected on the wealth and status of the leading female's family so naturally they were expected to look at their best. And since he was the retainer of the most prestigious woman here he was supposed to look absolutely impressive, and he did not…

His hair was paper dry and sat on his head like a bird's nest that had been hit by a tornado which could have been his fault since he hadn't brushed it since he got here. So, the first thing that happened to him when he arrived at his appointed room was being tackled by a bunch of maids. They had somehow managed to untangle his hair but even then, it seemed like he simply had ugly hair with no general shape in it while it still stuck out here and there. But the maids had known a solution for it, they had pinned up his hair in a tight French twist and while they had been anything but gentle it wasn't as bad as what they did next.

Then they had soaked him in a bath like he couldn't do it himself and all his protest had gone unheard. On top of that they had wanted to pierce his ears and that's where he had momentarily drawn the line. The nail polish that was part of the Akatsuki's uniform was enough of an introduction to the dress-up mannerisms of women to last him a lifetime.

"But miss, you must! Itsura-sama will not be pleased." One of them had pleaded with him, nervously tugging the sleeves of her standard grey kimono. Apparently, they had not liked the thought of an upset matriarch.

Knowing they had a point, his lips had thinned to an unhappy line. Of course, this was his new role and he was expected to play it accordingly. Besides he hadn't even fully understood why he was so reluctant to do it after all this wasn't even his body and he had done worse things during some missions. Yet piercing one's ears was so, unpractical, useless and girly… Despite his situation, he hadn't and would never accept being a girl. He had spent more than twenty years as a man, as Itachi Uchiha, and he would never be anybody else no matter how low he had to sink on infiltration missions and no matter how long he had to act like someone different.

But in the end, he had conceded. They had cooed at him with how well they looked on him and had given him praise for staying so still when they had pierced his ears.

"Real emeralds, of course." One of the women had sang.

Itachi was thankful for their small, simple design and consoled himself with the knowledge that earliest earrings had been worn by men.

After that all four of them had shuffled out of the door but not before mentioning to him that he should change. At first, he had wanted to ignore them but as he had regarded his tattered orphanage clothes that were still ripped and blood stained from the battle before he had decided to stop being a kid and get dressed.

So, there he was, unsure of what to do next as he smoothed out the non-existing creases in his clothes. They displayed how sly Itsura really was, or rather they didn't. At first sight it looked like he was just wearing a somewhat stylish dark grey kimono with a black obi and a strikingly white under-kimono but the garnets were modified to allow easy movement. The skirt was looser than the average kimono and had a slit in it so that he could run easily if need to be, the sleeves were a more narrow-fit for his arms so that they wouldn't get in the way and underneath the heavy thing he was wearing a thin chest guard.

It was a real improvement from what he had been previously wearing, especially regarding his footwear. The standard sandals he had been wearing since he got here were replaced by open-toed boots, less brute and longer than Konoha's ninja boots but of a much finer quality. There was one thing that Itsura had completely disregarded, ninja tools. Yes, he had a light grey pouch strapped on his lower back but was ruefully empty so that he found himself with even less weapons than before. Perhaps he could push and earing in someone's eye though that wouldn't kill. He should try to find himself something doable.

He looked around his new room, a bare but liveable thing, decorated with nothing but a bed, a closet and a desk all in wood. It reminded him of his old room at Konoha. His father had always appreciated parquet and other wooden creations, he wouldn't scoff at the prime wood that was used here.

"Praw." A short but loud wail came from the bed. The mangy cat he had petted in the infirmary had tried to follow him around, in the end he had let it which had resulted into it getting groomed by the maids as well. It had not been happy with being washed but a good soak had revealed a decent looking cat with clean fur that was apparently not brown but black with ginger tufts.

"What's wrong, Shisui?" Itachi was pretty sure the cat was female but that made the chosen name all the better. The image of a female Shisui almost made him smile. His cousin would probably kill himself with laughing if he knew Itachi got stuck into the body of a twelve-year-old girl so the name of the cat was a small private revenge.

The cat rolled over to display its fluffy belly and made the same noise as before.

"You want me to pet you, don't you?" Wide green eyes bore into his.

"Alright, why not." It wasn't like he had anything else to do or at least he thought he didn't, Itsura's instructions didn't go further than inform him of his new title and where he had to go once he was released from the infirmary. So, he sat himself down on his bed and carefully stroked the soft fur of his new pet as it purred.

Time ticked by and he started to wonder why Itsura hadn't called for him yet, it had to be near noon. What if he was supposed to find her? He strolled through his desk to skim trough her instructions again only to find the scroll empty, the message had destroyed itself.

He wasn't the sort of man who would start pacing around in a display of nervousness, he preferred sitting perfectly still but he was also a ninja, trained to always be on guard so waiting around for something to happen was also not his thing.

Deciding to try and find the clan's matriarch, he carefully concealed his chakra before he opened his door and soundlessly made his way through the hallway. He was at some sort of servant's quarter in the house. They bustled around, some giving him glances that he ignored without effort. It might have been smart to ask one of them were their mistress was but he'd rather not appear like an idiot who didn't know his way around. Still he didn't know where he was or how to orientate in this place and the long narrow pathways threw him off.

Then he felt it, three highly developed chakra signatures entered his sensory field as they neared the house and an idea popped to life. The chakra levels of the servants weren't quite high enough to alert him but they were present and if his guess was correct there was nothing significant for them to do at this time of the day so they were mostly concentrated in their residence that he was standing in the middle of. All he had to do was head the towards the place that held the least amount of people. For some reason, he couldn't sense Itsura which could mean she wasn't present at her house or she could be hiding her chakra signature, he wouldn't put it past her.

With his new strategy he slowly untangled himself from the lookalike corridors. It wasn't a straight path and he more than once had to retrace his steps because of a dead end but by using the chakra of the servants as an imaginary 'north' he didn't lose his sight on 'south'. After a while he once again reached the end of a hall but this one had a doorknob sprouting from its wall.

The door swung open easily as he turned the knob and it revealed an entrance hall with big windows that allowed the light of the day to brighten up the room and a great stairwell, a good sign. He stepped forward and absentmindedly pushed against the door to close it. It was like he had stepped into a whole different house. The floor was tilled and all colours were light but monochrome.

Something pressed on his senses and he inwardly cursed. Because he had focused on the smaller chakra levels around he had lost track of the three greater ones and thus was very surprised to find them striding towards the double doors of the entrance hall. Deciding it was better to return to the servant's domain in case one of those chakra levels belonged to who he thought they belonged to, he turned back to towards the door only to find it missing. No, he corrected himself while starting at what seemed to be a level wall, it was still there. If he looked close enough he could see a faint line that separated door from wall. It was a concealed door, that much was obvious but how to open it wasn't.

He experimentally pushed against it but that didn't do anything. Logic told him there was no doorknob on this side because you weren't meant to enter from there. The chakra's were coming nearer and he frantically scanned the room for another way out. There was another door on the opposite side of the room but he assumed that would lead him to were the owners of the house lived but he didn't really want to go there. The question 'why didn't I just wait inside my room?' entered his mind. Alarm bells went off in his head as he heard voices coming from outside and all idea's fled his mind. Footsteps were nearing.

Like a dog with his tail on fire he bolted up the stairs. He didn't know why he felt so desperate to hide but it didn't change the fact that he did. Somewhere halfway he could hear the front door open and it made him jump over the last few steps, role on the floor and spring up to press his back against the wall.

His hard hammered in his chest and he was totally winded. Two things filtered through his head: one, he needed to work on his condition and two, being weak made him jittery. The second though was very perturbing for him as before he had always been the predator, now he was the prey.

The conversation downstairs dragged on and now that they were inside he could hear they were talking about shogi but he couldn't make out the details. What he felt rather than heard was a person making his way up the stairs. Like before he coated his feet with chakra while making absolutely sure that none of it dissolved in the air around him. Scampering silently further down the new hallway he kept his senses focused.

"I'm just going to get the board."

His breathing hitched as he heard a voice from behind him. It was a dreadful game, running away unsure of whether you will be able to escape. Itachi knew this already from many of his deadliest missions and yet this situation grated on his nerves like nothing else. He flung himself around a corner and only briefly stopped there, the chakra was still advancing on him.

Itachi grabbed the handle of a nearby door and opened it as silently as possible, cringing when the handle made a small 'thunk' noise as it was turned downwards. With all the grace of a cornered animal he slipped inside and slowly closed the door again. He found himself in an office that was all white walls and dark wooden furniture. With his back pressed against the door he waited for the chakra to pass him by only it didn't… it slowed down as it came closer. Itachi inwardly cursed when it got too close to be a coincidence. He dived under the desk as the handle turned.

A small but too loud 'thud' cut through the silence as he bumped against the trashcan also situated under the desk. His hand shot out as a book fell out of it and he briefly noted the trashcan was overloaded with thrown away books. Because he was unable to put the book back in the trashcan without risking more falling books he pocketed it in his pouch.

There was no warning, no breath of human presence to indicate someone was in the room but that made the chakra's nearness all the more disturbing, after all only skilled ninja's could move that stealthily. For all his jumpiness from before, Itachi wasn't a novice when it came to being unnoticed and remaining perfectly still and quiet was something that had always belonged to the job. With his senses now on a sharp that could only be achieved in combination of skill with a high dose of adrenalin he felt the person shuffle towards the side of the room and _heard_ it grab something. It was then and there that he knew he had been discovered and the other ninja was trying to lure him in a false sense of security by giving signs of his presence. What the other didn't know was that any seasoned ninja knew it was unrealistic to suddenly be able to hear someone who had previously shown to be impeccably stealthy.

Itachi knew he was caught with no clever tricks to save him not that he even bothered to try and think of something as such was a principal ingrained on him by his service in ANBU: once you are found it's over, no matter what the mission is the prime objective is and always will be _not_ being found. When you find yourself unmasked or your presence unveiled there only remains one option and that is to perform the suicide jutsu, a jutsu that was taught to him and memorised by him with the sharingan. At the time it was a convenience, weeks or months that could be wasted on learning this incredibly complex but absolutely required technique were spared because by the mere seconds it took for his sharingan to memorize the technique and it had allowed him to enrol in ANBU much faster than the usual trainees. The negative aspects of taking shortcuts were becoming very apparent for him now even if it had seemed to alluring to skip on training that was by no means a walk in the park (training that involved killing yourself if you did it _too_ correct).

But considering this technique in a situation like this was bordering being ridiculous. So, he was left contemplating whether do damage control and announce himself or to wait for the other to call him out on it.

The decision was taken off his hand when a head suddenly popped in his vision, hanging upside down. He was looking in the dark eyes of a little boy who's semblance was so striking to Sasuke's that it send a painful stabbing pain through his being.

"Found you!" His grin was wolfish as he flipped over the desk to face Itachi in a crouched position.

"So, you have." Plastered on his features was his well-worn unreadable mask which seemed to dim the boy's earlier excitement a bit.

"You know, you hide your chakra well. I mean better than most." The grin reappeared. "But not well enough." Itachi ultimately raised his eyebrows because for one he found the boy's statement weird and for two he wasn't completely immune to his cute face and efforts to have him speak to the boy.

Picking up on Itachi change in facial expression he proudly pointed at his chest. "I'm a sensor."

Ah, that made sense because for a moment he had completely overlooked that a young boy had managed to notice him even with his chakra carefully concealed but if he took a moment to consider the situation it would have been very strange if the boy hadn't explained himself first.

"Me too." He murmured, feeling the need to talk to the Sasuke-like child, like he was never able to do with his little brother. "I'm a sensory type as well." At least the body he inhabited was.

"Really!" The child exclaimed so loudly Itachi had to fight to impulse to cover his ears. "But wouldn't you be able to hide from me then?"

"I just haven't had the chance to further develop my sensory skills yet." He explained truthfully. An idea then lit up in his head.

"Let's see if you are as good in hiding as you claim to be. Why don't you try to hide from me and I'll try to track you?"

His finger moved to his lips and he tapped it in a rather dramatic way. "Hmmm… Are you trying to get rid of me?"

Oh, he got caught. He raised his hands in a 'maybe' motion and that made the 'more intelligent than his looks would make you guess' boy smile.

"I'll tell _you_ what. Tell me what you were doing here and I'll help you practise sensory and no lying because I can feel it when you do in your chakra."

Itachi perked up at that. It was only rumoured that the best sensors could feel thing like emotions in chakra maybe even catch on lies.

"Alright." He sighed not because he had to tell the truth but because he realized what that truth was. Blood rose to his cheeks but he ignored it. "I was bored." It was true, he couldn't stay in his room because he had felt restless and hadn't known what to do with himself.

The boy's smile widened spontaneously and Itachi had to make an effort to not deflect his eyes. "Cool, here I thought you were one of those boring spies, prying around my father's desk but it seems like you are fun after all. I'm Izuna."

Izuna. The name instantly rang a bell. This was the brother of Madara Uchiha, claimed to be equally powerful, whom had died before the creation of Konohagakure but… not before leaving behind a child. This was his great grandfather.

"Itachi." Was his automatic response.

"Well Itachi, I'm going to take the shogi board downstairs so you can crawl from under the desk." The laughter in Izuna's voice didn't go unnoticed by Itachi and he would be lying if he didn't feel slightly embarrassed by his predicament.

Izuna was standing outside the room by the time he had managed to emerge from his hiding spot.

"Oh, one last thing! Mother is in the garden."

XXXXXX

It took him awhile to find the way to the garden but when he was there Itsura immediately greeted him with an amused 'what took you so long', sitting on a rural bench in a deep royal blue kimono with a fine silver pattern of birds and feathers.

"I was lost." There was a grumpy tone in his voice that he didn't bother hiding. She patted a spot next to her and he sat down after which she sighed.

"You know, you have the grace of a silent killer but it seems like no one ever bothered to teach you how to behave like a woman." She commented dryly while looking over the neatly kept but standard garden.

His upraising had not lacked in manners and grace but she was right, nobody had bothered to teach him of the proper behaviourisms of women so he his answer sounded equally dry.

"No, they haven't."

A wry smile formed on her lips, almost a grimace and he had a feeling it wasn't out of distaste but pity.

"Lesson number one, Itachi: Close your legs." If he didn't have his facial expressions under control like he had, he might have looked surprised as he crossed his legs, a form that if more graceful indeed, was not natural for him.

They sat in silence then, taking in the short cut grass and the cute stone paths running through it currently occupied by maids setting something up on the terrace, a rather elaborate lunch if his eyes didn't deceive him.

"Any thoughts about your new role?" Itsura started casually, "I normally have three retainers. Only a little while ago one of them had to get herself… otherwise engaged. As you must know, for a retainer there shouldn't be a thing more important than their charge. No lovers and no children. So, you see, I had to replace her." She turned her gaze to him.

He nodded politely.

"Of course, Itsura-sama can I ask you about my training?" It was something he was utmost eager for, being able to shed this weakness off of him, getting closer to being himself again.

"My older retainers will teach you the ways of the sword. For any more than that you're just going to have to continue spying on the boys. I cannot get involved in such a thing." She waved him off.

In other words if his 'shameful' practise of the shinobi arts were discovered he alone would be held accountable.

"Don't give me that look, Itachi. You'll have way more privacy and practise time than when you were at the orphanage, that should count for something."

It did, he realised, with all his knowledge he would be able to train himself accordingly even if that meant without more jutsu to his arsenal. He would have to undergo some severe physical conditioning before he was ready for anything else, anyway.

"Now," She handed him a folded paper and an envelope, "I need this done before dinner but feel free to help yourself to some lunch first. Perhaps, you can share some with your friends, they were inquiring about you." With a flick of Itsura's hand a servant maid came running towards them, a basket in hand. Itachi's surprise was great when she passed it to him.

XXXXX

His noon was spent on the familiar grassy field with the orphaned trio and they were greatly curious to hear about his story. Fuji was proud of him as she told him it was what she meant with 'something better for them'. It sent a slight pang of pity through him, looking at their well-worn uniforms and tired eyes but he reasoned they were better off without the complications that shinobi-life brought with it.

After their initial curiosity had passed they started chatting away like usual, as if he didn't belong anywhere else but with them. It was nice, just sitting with them while enjoying the soft sun until Ayama made a comment about a young boy who had been adopted by elder Kirashi. Suddenly the real reason why Itsura had sent him to them squeezed his chest together with crushing force. At first, he had believed her basket with little custard cakes and her promise of a free afternoon was just out of kindness and good will but as he thought about it he realised he was not here to 'have fun'. Ren, Fuji and Ayama were his first, unknowing, informants and Itsura wanted him to stay updated on the clan's affairs through their eyes and ears.

His stomach grew slightly upset when he realised he was just using his… well, he wouldn't call them friends, not with what he knew. He had done worse, a lot worse, than listen to the everyday gossip of teenage girls yet still he felt conflicted. Maybe it was because he had briefly believed he was free of all those… those back stabbing, morally wrong assignments but he felt more averse to it than he had in a long time.

For a few moments longer, he dutifully stayed with them even actively tried to mix in the conversation but his efforts were dulled by dismay and a tiredness he was not unfamiliar with.

Excusing himself, he stood up and stalked off.

This compound was nothing like the one at home, he decided. It was vaster, town-like yet more traditional like the Hyuuga compound. The modern Uchiha's had had shops in their district and other private resources but this place was brimming with merchandise, market stalls and even had a library of its own, even the houses here were better than those in Konoha. You'd think it should be the other way around but of course he knew the true reason behind the difference. It saddened him greatly to know the Uchiha had done better on their own than in alliance with his beloved Konoha.

So, it was with great trepidation that he walked through the crowded streets his head heavy with guild, guild for killing his clan, for silencing the joy and laughter that ran amongst these people even in times of war. The feeling had followed him throughout his life, stalked him everywhere he went and ambushed him when he had least expected it. Part of him, his Shisui inspired part, played with fantasies of dragging his clan to glory, changing their self-indulged ways and removing the curse of hatred. Shisui would have tried it, most ethically developed people would have but Itachi was not like his cousin and he didn't believe in people like he had. The Uchiha would never change, at least not by his hand.

No, despite the pain and difficulties it would bring upon his yet-to-be-born self and little brother, the future had to happen and was most likely unstoppable.

He was glad Itsura's note lead him outside the compound even if he had to pass grumpy gate guards who berated him for trying to leave without covering up his Uchiha insignia. War time brought some nifty inventions with it and he hadn't even realized he could turn the outer layer of his kimono inside out without it showing any difference except the lack of an Uchiha fan.

The warning of the Uchiha shinobi pressed the war back to the forefront of his mind to get him on guard as he ran on the muddy ground. This was an unfriendly environment with unknown enemies lurking around and worst of all, he was in unknown territory if he wasn't careful it could be his last mistake. The trees were too thin to take to and the weather felt slightly humid. Wherever he was, it was not in the land of fire. His best guess was the warmer part of the land of water but he couldn't recognise anything.

With his senses on high alert and his mind on the destination the note described he sped onwards even when his legs began to tire over the short distant.

The city of Chimachi was nothing grand or particularly noteworthy. It was rather small and its buildings didn't even reach that high. The streets were narrow and sported dirt-roads and the whole place gave a sort of impoverish vibe. There was nothing out of the ordinary, in fact if not for Itsura's business here, he wouldn't have looked twice at the standard city.

Like in every city, ninja's were strictly prohibited from entering. They were generally known to cause trouble and were thus not welcome within any city or village for that matter. But the city of Chimachi had an isolated district with a sole purpose of selling merchandise to ninja.

With practised ease, he henged into his old self. While it wasn't particularly clever to display himself to be so openly ninja he couldn't resist because it sure felt good to be himself again even if it was a tangible mirage caused by chakra. It also felt great to not wear the akatsuki cloak. Instead he proudly wore his undamaged hitai-ate and his old ANBU-getup minus the mask.

Trudging down the market at a slow yet confident pace, Itachi began to run through training regimens for himself so he could get down to a level he comfortable with. The sensory skill he had were raw and undeveloped, that's what his encounter with young Izuna had proven so he'd have to work on that as well. Sensory and genjustu often came hand and that was a congenial thought. He liked genjutsu.

As the streets became less dense with houses and people, he knew he was there. The ninja district was truly pitiful with only a few wooden houses that saw green of decay and the windows were so unclean that is was impossible to look through them. Here and there some shinobi stood guard over the shops. He double checked his orders before entering a shabby hut with no sign to be seen.

 **XXXXXX**

Yusei had long since gotten used to shinobi and their love for theatrics. They walked in, either with puffed up chests, slamming their hand on the counter while demanding that they'd be helped in loud carrying voices to let others know they were 'impressive' or silent and brooding while wanting to appear mysterious.

So, when a tall young man practically waltzed into shop, silent but with an air around him that simply demanded your attention, he could have rolled his eyes. Instead he chose to ignore the ninja in favour dusting off his shelves. He heard Ryuto scoff at him. Later the shinobi that had found his way into Yusei's family would certainly call him brash, looking for trouble. But he was allowed to be was he not. This was his shop and he paid in son-in-law to protect it for a reason. Yusei shot him a look that said 'you go help him then' but he needn't have bothered, Ryoto was already on his feet. He was damn polite for a ninja, the only reason why he allowed his daughter to marry the lad. He briefly looked at the third ninja in the room. He was hired by the city to protect this district like many others. After all, selling to ninjas was a booming business but you didn't want them to stir up trouble. Yusei didn't have to pay that one and yet he rather disliked the company of the third ninja, he never even gave his name.

"Can I help you sir." Yusei watched them from the corner of his eyes.

"Yes, I believe I have a few things I need. Add two extra kunai to that, please." The foreigner replied as he handed over a little paper he had just scribbled a few things on. His voice was smooth in an eerily pleasant way. He took the time to carefully pronounce his words and spoke neither soft nor loud. It was the way an important person learned to speak from birth.

"Of course, sir." Ryoto was already searching through the shelves, not bothering with small talks, ninja didn't like those.

So Ryoto stated his price and waited for the man to pay which he did after he pulled the money from a beige envelope. It was only when the stranger turned around, his new things in hand and started to walk away that the third ninja stirred from his place.

"You." He growled in a low voice. The man's dull beige armour clinked when he took a step forward. "Who are you? Identify yourself." Yusei found the sudden interest in the man from the guard rather unsettling, ninjas always kept quiet about themselves. The stranger didn't turn himself around when he answered calmly. "Nobody identifies themselves in these times." And then he was out of the door.

XXXXX

He was stealing from Itsura, that much he realized even if he had never been a thief before, because she wanted nothing to do with his developments as a shinobi she had forced his hand. One of his kunai dug into the bark of a tree, his aim wasn't bad but wavered over longer distances caused by too little force.

It was good fortune that in these times receipts were written by hand so that Itachi had been able to easily falsify one. Special care had been given to the small details in the shopkeeper's handwriting in case that snake of a women was familiar with it. It hadn't been hard to number away the price of two kunai, a pen, some paper and a little blank book, Itsura had simply commissioned ridiculous amounts of standard ninja tools that had weighted heavy as he had carried them back. They were for her children, she had explained, while the clan offered ninja tools to any active shinobi that were of a decent quality and her sons might perish in battle but then it wouldn't have been because of only _decent_ tools. They would get only the best and as Itachi handled the two kunai he had nicked he had to admit they were of high quality.

After twirling the second kunai in his hand for a short while he threw it at the same place of the first one. _Thunk_. An inch off, this was unacceptable but working to get his aim at the same level as before was pointless.

He had been halfway designing a training schedule for himself in his notebook when it had dawned upon him like one realises a cat cannot be taught how to play fetch, he was not himself anymore at least his body wasn't, though he had denied it vehemently. His shuriken jutsu had once been phenomenally accurate on a level that most shinobi could only dream to realise but that had been purely Itachi Uchiha and while he was still himself mind-wise, body-wise he was completely different. Teaching this body all his previous techniques and specialties was a far stretch of being achievable. Nothing would be the same.

He sat himself down after retrieving his kunai and took out his notebook. The two first pages of it gave away with a tearing sound as he pulled them out. They were wrong, concluded on what he had been capable of before he died. Step by step he worked him way through what he knew and deducted if it would be wise to train himself in it. The results were bleak as he read through the coded text.

He concluded that while he should keep his shuriken jutsu practised he would never again reach the expertise he had in the future, his body was too different to what he was used to. Taijjutsu was difficult because he was most familiar with the Uchiha style that strongly depended on the use of a sharingan. Without it, the style would be too risky to perform. He wrote down ideas of different styles he had seen and he could if need to be break down to academy style, which was pretty basic but better than nothing. Elemental ninjutsu was a complete loss for the moment. His chakra levels needed to rise and for some reason he had a feeling that he wasn't a fire type like he previously was. Other ninjutsu could most likely be applied. He was most excited to get started on the genjutsu, he was an obvious genjutsu type and while he could only remember a limited amount of them without his sharingan, genjutse was all about getting creative.

It wasn't as promising as he wanted it to be. He tapped his pen against the pages in an effort to think about how to deal with these issues but came up blank. For all his genius, he was too used to being a genius. But even in his old (or future) life he had never had to teach himself, Shisui had always been there. Sure, there had been techniques he had learned on his own or even invented on his own like his mirage crow genjutsu, but he could always try them out on Shisui during their spars and count on his help to point out the flaws.

Still there was no point in sitting around, twiddling his thumbs. He pocketed his notebook and arched his brow when he felt his hand bump against another book. Pulling it out he realised it was the one he found at the clan leader's office. His eyes skimmed over the title 'Fuinjustu, a theoretic walkthrough'. Curious, Itachi noted, the clan leader, Tajima if he remembered correctly, had grown an interest in fuinjustu something he hadn't been known for in the history books. It must have had something to do with that seal he had seen in the warehouse.

He had no use for it, Itachi realised but it gave him an idea. Maybe, it would be better to forget about his old talents and step into unfamiliar territory. Sensory was one of those, kenjustu and medical ninjustu were others that he had never tried but could be lethal enough and he was sure there were even more options. Still he would get nowhere if he stayed as bodily weak as he was now.

He stood up and started physically conditioning his body the rest would come later and as he, ran through a series of exercises he knew he had to find information on certain topics. How he was going to get it, he had no idea.

 **XXXXXX**

By the time, he had stopped training he had been aching all over and had to drag himself back. He had expected his exhaustion to keep the more vivid dreams away but he couldn't really claim he was displeased with his current company. The confusion with the fourth had only lasted a second for that man would never eat his ramen so indignantly. Broth splattered over the already messy kitchen table as a young blond man dug into his food like he hadn't eaten in centuries. From what Itachi could see the whole kitchen was in a similar state.

Naruto, that was his name. Itachi had a few brief but remarkable memories of the boisterous blond. Only one before he became Danzo's scapegoat.

It had been at one of Konoha's traditional festivals, he didn't remember which, and the blond pariah had been denied to buy dango from one of the stalls. Itachi hadn't been enjoying his, father had just started stirring up the clan members for the coup and he had felt sick with trepidation. So, he had decided to pass on his treats to the blond boy after all it was perhaps his clan fault the boy had ended up the way he did. Only later did he knew the Kyuubi attack wasn't his clan's doing but that of the masked man claiming to be Madara Uchiha.

"You looked so lost then."

Itachi managed to not look surprised when he heard the slightly hoarse voice from Naruto.

"I had no idea you had any memories of that time." Of course, he didn't this was a dream.

Naruto chuckled. "You were too kind for ninja life back then, too soft." If he should have felt offended it was squashed down with the truth behind those words.

"Too bad I was so good at it then." And he send a small smile towards the blond, not a real one but he couldn't remember smiling for real and he didn't often bother with fake ones.

"Yeah," The blond man leaned back in his chair, "but are you sure?"

"About what?" Because he had a feeling this wasn't about his prowess as a shinobi.

"About letting it all happen again? Doing this to Sasuke again? You could change them you know, change the Uchiha and the village for the better." Cerulean eyes dug into his with a sad intensity that was nearly unbearable.

Itachi effectively dropped his smile not because he was angry at the blond for bringing the topic up but because he would have to disappoint this dream version of Naruto.

"I can't, the death of the Uchiha is for the best." And he would never be able to change anyone, he wasn't a hero.

This time a frown appeared on the young man's face.

"No, it's the easiest way of eliminating the problem, not the best."

Itachi remained silent. While the massacre was very taxing upon his mental health it was definitely easiest for the rest of Konoha. In all earnestly he'd rather hide away from the entity that was the Uchiha clan but he was still somewhat duty-bound to his village so he stayed and made sure everything went accordingly.

Naruto sighed deeply aggrieved.

"I see, your clan, Danzo, Konoha… You are too broken Itachi."

XXXXX

 _You are too broken Itachi…_

The words followed him for days after even though he did not believe them. He had stood strong against the pressure of his clan, was scarred for life after the massacre but went on, had let Sasuke kill him and was happy because of it. Nothing had broken him.

He continued with a daily routine of running around on Itsura's orders, spending his noon-break with the orphans and training till well into the night. In his dreams, he was often visited by various people, some who he had barely even known, most of the times they ended as a nightmare with Sasuke in pain and Madara the cause of it. He ran into the real Madara a few times and though nothing but perhaps an awkward greeting from the boy ever happened he was slowly growing an unrelenting aversion towards the boy who roamed in his nightmares. Yet he stayed civil and blankly returned the greetings, it wouldn't do to have Itsura suspect he hated her son. It might result in her thinking she didn't want him to become clan leader when he really did. His nightmares were just that, nightmares.

 **XXXXXX**

 **This was difficult to write believe me... pfew. But next chapter we can really start developing Itachi's fighting style (and deepen the plot of course) what do you think he should fight like? I have it mostly worked out but I'm still curious to hear your thoughts upon the matter.**

 **Have any questions? Put them in a review and I swear I'll answer!**


	4. Chapter 4

**I just want to mention, since in most stories where characters undergo a gender swap they take it in stride, that Itachi considering himself as a 'he' won't just go away. Image you are somewhere in your twenties and that you die only to wake up a someone from the opposite gender, your memories of your previous life are your most dominant: would you immediately consider yourself of a different gender, would you accept it right away? I don't think I would, that's why I write this story this way.**

 **XXXXXX**

Tajima rubbed his temples for a good while before throwing another book on the pile that was well on his way to burying his trashcan before taking the next one. It was stupid of him to throw them there, he knew, since they were not his but from the clan and he would have to put them back into the vault eventually. Still his frustrations with them could not be tempered as he wasted hours with reading through books on fuinjutsu with no results. He pushed his dark locks out of his face and thought about shaving it just as short as the hair on the back of his head but decided against it and continued reading.

That seal they had found on the night of the warehouse infiltration stood recorded nowhere, at least not in these books. On top of that he had just received an interrogation report of the survivor. His interrogation team was infallible and after healing the man's eardrum they had slowly but surely, without making things too messy, gotten the prisoner to speak. As it turned out whoever the enemy was, they had been cautious and a seal on their prisoner's tongue had detonated the very moment the man decided to talk. The result had been, to put it lightly, very messy.

The entire ordeal left him with two possible suspects: the Senju, or in the worst-case scenario, his own clan. At first glance everything pointed at the Senju: the unknown, complicated seals not only in the warehouse but also on one of the infiltrates strongly suggested involment of the Uzumaki and the fact that there was a redhead among them enhanced that idea. Everybody knew the Uzumaki were staunchly loyal to the Senju. That and the land of Water and Wind were subtly sinking into a conflict that would most likely pit his clan against _them_ again so the Senju could be trying to weaken them prematurely. Yes, no official war had been announced yet but Tajima could read the signs by now and he was sure Butsuma could as well. The problems in Hadosagyo were also troubling.

But shinobi didn't do 'at first glance' as their profession demanded they'd not just jump on the first signs presented to them and there was a big _glaring_ neon arrow pointing straight at the Senju. The whole thing was just suspicious enough to garner his attention, as if there was a little but urgently pointing finger directed towards the opposite side of the great arrow. Everybody knew what the stood directly opposite from the Senju, the Uchiha.

Tajima would rather eat his own children alive than think of his clan that way but a few questions he had no answers to, gave him no other choice. For one thing, the Senju or any other clan would have never been able to break through the Uchiha's defences that had been crafted and perfected ages before he himself had been born, at least not by themselves. Elder Yuudai had been right, there were no holes in their patrol system so one had to be _made_ to get through. So obviously the first question was: How did the enemy find their way in when they weren't even skilful enough to save themselves from a little girl with nothing but a box cutter and a nail file on hand?

The other question was the seal. Despite not being allied to the Uzumaki clan he _had_ documents on their fuinjutsu and its style yet nothing could be found in there that even resembled the weird seal. According to his own seal specialist the core indicated that it served a space manipulating function like a storage scroll and its key, which hadn't been completely finished, could have meant that it wasn't meant to be unsealed but the rest of the seal, all the curls and signs around it, was like gibberish for the man. As if somebody had just started painting pretty designs and patterns for fun. Thus he was now reading fuinjustu documents that were unrelated to the Uzumaki, in the hopes of finding the strange seal's origin and by extension, a possible culprit.

The door of his study opened. His wife entered with two cups of steaming tea. He watched her daintily put the cups on his desk as she sat herself on the wooden surface.

"You know," He began knowing very well what her opinion was on the matter, "You could always have someone bring them up for you." He nodded towards the teacups.

A smile formed on her lips, as her husband reminded her of this very often almost as if questioning her why she wouldn't use all the wealth he had to offer her. "The care that my husband should receive befalls on me and I won't hand it off to anybody as that is against my principles." Her face took on a less good humoured expression as she did when she was about to say something she registered as slightly embarrassing.

"And also, because I don't want to."

Tajima would have laughed if his he didn't knew his wife would take exception to it. Every time she would say something that came close to 'I love you' she looked like she had just swallowed an unsweetened lime. It was a pride thing, he knew. Itsura just wasn't the kind of woman to love a man instead she would rather use him for her own gain. Yes, he knew about the devious nature of his wife yet for some reason, it didn't bother him. Perhaps it was because he knew she had never planned on marrying him, wanting a life on the battlefield and having even persuaded her respectable old man to teach her, but she had fallen in love with him in the end.

So, no one could blame him for feeling a bit smug every time she made a face like that, especially not after he had worked his arse off to get the girl.

Still he supressed his smirk by taking a sip of his tea. A soft white tea without sugar and the slightest hint of honey in it, just the way he liked it.

He sighed contently. "Of course, just make sure not to overwork yourself." Again, he inwardly smirked as he literally felt his wife bristle.

"No half decent woman wouldn't be able to care for her husband." Then after a pointed look she added, "Tirelessly!"

Another gulp of tea passed his lips to stifle his laughter.

"You are the most decent, dear." His voice sounded a little coarse. A coy smile found his way on her lips, one that he was very familiar with, one that promised vengeance.

"You are mocking me."

His hand pressed over his heart. "I wouldn't dare." But this time he allowed his lips to curl into that overdue smirk.

"Tsssk, enough of that. You shouldn't talk about overworking." As she said that she reached over to smoothen his black hair that had been tussled by him out of frustration.

"Yes, if only I could get something out of reading these." He waved his hand towards the books and scrolls then he asked, "Have any ideas?"

She frowned. "Well, I would rather not say it because it's rather worrying but… I suspect someone among the patrolling shinobi of that night has somehow become loyal to an outside threat, an unknown outsider and he's leaving breaches in our defence."

Tajima frowned as well. "But why? That doesn't make sense. This would mean taking the clan down with them and all of these men have family here. I don't see how someone could do that. There's a reason this has never happened before."

"Unless this outsider has an incredible amount of wealth to reward the soldier with and a promise of safety for him and his loved ones after it's done because such a traitorous act is bound to have consequences. That excludes the Senju as suspects. They wouldn't be able to offer the safety as they are a shinobi clan and they would never allow deadweight in their clan even if we are to be terminated." Her voice was calm but her hands were gripped tightly around her own cup of tea.

The implication here were heavy to swallow and Tajima's voice became darker as he commented on his wife's suspicions.

"Do you know _who_ that includes?" He didn't ask because he didn't know but because he _did_.

Her eyes fluttered close.

"Yes." She hissed.

All was silent for a short while until Tajima brought up the topic again. "I don't know what to worry about more. The Senju slipping half trained shinobi into our clan unnoticed by our patrols our one of our own betraying us for an unknown incredibly powerful individual. Could this be another scheme of the council to undermine my leadership?" it had been a while since he had talked this much. But the stress was catching up to him and he desperately needed a lead in this because all he was doing now was staring at dead ends.

"Honey," Her voice was soft with mild humour in it, amused by his distressed state. "strange that you worry so much when all you used to have was confidence. If this were a conversation ten years ago, you would have said that the clan would be able to handle it no matter what was at play."

A frown once again appeared on his face. "But this is not ten years back, and that boy barely one foot into adulthood has grown up and opened his eyes." Then he crossed his arms. "But I see your point, the years are making me restless."

"Time for a vacation." It was an old joke, shinobi in general rarely went on vacation, and clan leaders truly never could. He smiled half-heartedly at her still.

Tajima leaned back in his chair and said. "I can't wait for Madara to take over. He can be in those meeting for hours on end while I can point and laugh. Maybe we'll finally be able to go on that honeymoon we've skipped."

His wife chuckled. "Wouldn't that be nice, dear." Then her face morphed back to a more serious one. "But seriously Tajima, don't let this get to you so much. I'll keep my eyes and ears open and so should you. The clan has survived through worse before." A pause. "We have been through worse." The last part was spoken softly but hurried and it shot a fresh wave of pain through him. It was true, he realised while quickly glancing at a family picture, the only _complete_ family picture he had. There was nothing that could be worse after all.

He swallowed, unsure of what to say. Thankfully his wife changed the topic smoothly. "Enough about work, you should think about other things sometimes. Izuna would like help with shogi again, it's been awhile."

Without wasting a second he happily accepted the new subject because he was a coward and there were some things he couldn't bring himself to talk about. "Oh drat, not again."

Itsura stood up and took his now empty cup out of his hands.

"Is it that bad?" she questioned. "I thought you had fun teaching Madara, why not with Izuna?"

"Because when Madara loses he tries to take revenge in the next game, when Izuna loses he flings _my_ pieces at me." Resting his chin on his head he grumbled incomprehensible words sounding a lot like 'brat' and 'bad loser'.

Itsura started laughing, hollow and strained with a mind still on their losses. "Don't worry I'll ask Madara to help his brother, I swear he works wonders on the boy, he's only really attentive when his aniki talks to him." Then she stepped out of his study. "Dinner's at six."

"Wait." He called out.

"Yes." She said taking a step back so she stood in his doorframe.

"That girl you hired, am I right to assume you have planned something for her?"

"Haven't I always something planned?" She smiled. "Trust me."

He did.

 **XXXXXX**

If anybody would have asked Itachi what his life motto had been in his younger years he would have answered: to live and let live. What had changed? His ideals certainly hadn't, they hadn't morphed into something else, changed by the wisdom accumulated through the years, no, they had simply faded, wilted away into nothingness until there was nothing left. Until there was no Itachi Uchiha to speak of anymore. Maybe dream Naruto did have a point but he wasn't completely willing to admit to it.

His brother had been his lifeline, the only memory of Uchiha Itachi left to roam the surface and he clung to it because he knew… he knew without those memories he would disappear together with his ideals. Being so far removed from all traces of Sasuke was nothing short of agony **,** a torture more effective than any physical harm he had ever endured. He kept himself together by mere routine and a self-assigned mission to watch over the creation of Konoha, the one things he could do for Sasuke.

Every day he woke up at six, bathed himself if necessary and proceeded to think of his training schedule for the day. At seven he let the maids in that served his breakfast and allowed them to take care of his appearance. By eight a clock he would be ready to meet with Itsura in the foyer and she would lecture him after which she would proceed to give him little tasks that forced him to interact with the Uchiha people, sometimes he had to accompany her to somewhere. Often he was to join the other retainers during their mockery of training, and while it was certainly interesting -from a historian's point of view- to discover how the women of that time were being prepared to protect their charge, it was a training that probably wouldn't save their own lives let alone that of the matriarch. In the end, they were cannon fodder meant to last long enough for a man to reach them. On the plus side they were allowed to carry a thin, short sword

At seven in the evening his work-shift was over and he was served diner down at the servant's quarter. Then he'd travel down his secluded training area and would work through his daily exercises. He'd write down thing he had improved upon and thing he'd still needed work on in his notebook and then he'd go to bed after which his dreams would welcome him.

The dreams continued on sporadically but instead of being other people each time they were now constantly marked by the presence of one Naruto Uzumaki who was sometimes accompanied by his loyal friend Kurama, better known as the nine-tailed fox. If those dreams didn't confuse him so, he might have found them funny. Where his head found the imaginations, he had no idea but the idea of a bijuu befriending a human was laughable.

Itachi didn't laugh of course, instead he carefully stayed one step behind a distraught Itsura as she marched through the garden. How a girl was to behave had perhaps never been taught to him but how a servant had to act, he knew. He had played a proper valet before in one of his many missions, had served as a porter and had even been disguised as a stable-boy.

Itsura was imparting one of her many lectures on Itachi and with all her talk about not wanting to have anything to do with teaching him he found that many things could be learned from her still. She had showed him the hidden blades in her fan before, not by telling him they were there but by subtly showing glimpses of the inside of her fan. Itachi touched his left arm, where a small blade was strapped with a bandage, his own hidden tool. It wasn't really a weapon but an unfinished thin slab of metal he had stolen at the blacksmith's. Today she was talking to him about the importance of make-up, a subject he was less enthusiastic about as he believed it would be followed by a request to use it.

"… but then such colours cannot be used, no I would advise…"

If woman truly could, and did, insert innuendos of their intentions and personality in their make-up then it's meaning had been lost on him throughout his life, and probably on the rest of mankind as well…

Itsura stopped walking.

"Is something the matter, Itsura-sama?" He immediately inquired as he also stopped, right behind her.

She turned around, her skirts swirling with her.

"Only that I have lost track of time." It was a strange thing for her to say, there was no actual time concerning her teachings. A bird flying in circles near them helped him understand: she was being summoned somewhere.

When his eyes travelled back down he saw in her eyes that she knew he understood what the bird meant, it had after all been a very common method of contacting shinobi within Konoha.

She sighed, hand holding out a note and an envelope for him. "Sometimes I wonder how you know so much." Her voice sounded full of emotion but was so devoid of it, a way infiltrates learned to speak so that the lies or true intentions behind their words were never heard. Both Itsura and himself were masters of this deception but Itachi preferred making his phrases just as empty as he felt inside.

Taking the two items, he didn't wait to be dismissed as it was clear she wanted him to leave when her gaze swept over the bird once again, instead he marched off towards his room. Once their he sat down on his bed, petted Shisui absentmindedly on her head and opened the folded paper. It was short in instructions as always.

 _You are to get a special delivery from Chimachi._

She didn't have to write where he had to get it, there was only one place he knew there. Quickly checking the envelope, he noticed there was a large sum of money in there, a really large sum. This had to be a very special delivery. It would mark his second visit to the small impoverish city and he remembered how uneasy he had felt the first time on the road. War was lurking around and he was weak. While that hadn't changed, he could at least say he was less weak than two weeks prior. **His** taijutsu style was a disastrous mix of bits and pieces he could recall from other styles he mastered in his previous life time but at least he had taijutsu now. If it had anything going for it then it would be its unpredictability a feat that was, in the ninja world, quite desired. Whether it would be enough to save him in battle could only be discovered during that battle because he hadn't been able to use it yet. Teaching oneself a fighting style was incredibly hard without the feedback of a teacher, he had found out, and while he had tried to find weak spots in his style by summoning a clone and pretending it was tangible, pitting yourself against yourself leaves much to be desired.

He had trained hard on his basic jutsu as well for they were all he had as he had been unsuccessful in finding any scrolls on genjutsu. It was disappointing to say the least, he had really wanted to expand his arsenal in that department, because genjutsu had always interested him. In his previous life, the sharingan had offered him a shortcut in mastering it and he had grabbed onto it with both hands, something that he regretted dearly now. If he had taken the time to actually learn genjutsu he wouldn't be with so few techniques to rely on now but it wasn't entirely his fault. Long before he was supposed to Itachi had realised how fragile Konoha was and it had forced him to grow up and grow stronger as fast as possible. There was simply no time to truly devote himself to any subject when he just needed to know them all. He wanted to make up for that now, when he had a second life time to learn and he knew the Uchiha had a vault full with justu and other precious information but he hadn't been able to find it.

Sitting himself down on his desk he pulled the fuinjustu book out of one of the drawers and flipped it open on the first page. His thumb traced over the handwritten ink letters in the corner of the book.

 _Row 152  
F  
Category: Fuinjutsu_

He had read this many times over in the hopes in somehow hinted towards the location of the vault. It hadn't. Out of lack of any other reading material he had started reading in the fuinjutsu book and had found it quite interested. There were no actual 'how to make's' written in it but it explained the theoretical part of fuinjutsu, how a core's type determined the seal's purpose and how it corresponded with its key. It hadn't exactly been a light read but he had enjoyed the challenge and because of it he was quite sure that he could recognise most seals' functions on sight. What he couldn't do was drawing seals. The book wasn't specific enough to help him with that, it hadn't stopped him from trying though.

He pulled out the explosive tags he had been working on and after looking at the clock to determine whether he had time or not, he also pulled out his ink and brush. Itachi had been able to conjure up some seals as an ANBU, complicated seals varying in use from alarm seals to barrier seals and while he had been no master he still found it absurdly pride damaging that he couldn't create a simple explosive tag. They could be bought in every ninja store in his time and yet Itachi Uchiha, a once in a lifetime genius had been struggling to create something that belonged in the standard ninja equipment.

Still, he reasoned with himself, he had come pretty far already, some of his tags did indeed explode, just not at the time he released them, and just because something was difficult didn't mean he had to give up. It was frustrating only because all the effort could have been avoided as in this time explosive tags were extremely expensive and thus he was forced to try and create his own. Otherwise he likely wouldn't have bothered.

He looked at the tags he had drawn more recently, they were smaller than the ones that could be bought, he had made them so. They hadn't been tested yet and he wondered if maybe this time the left line was drawn correct so that the thing detonated when he wanted it to. He was about the grab his brush and ink to draw other prototypes so he could set them of later and see how a difference in brushstroke created different effects when he felt something just barely tickling his senses. His top drawer was opened roughly and all his sealing stuff was swept of his desk into it. The door swung open to reveal a grinning Izuna. Itachi kept his face placid.

"Itachi-nee, I'm bored!" The boy sang. Inwardly Itachi grimaced at the way he was addressed and the loudness of the statement.

"Izuna-san, what are you doing, it is improper for you to be here." He informed coolly.

It wasn't the first time the menace had decided to announce his presence in Itachi's room like that. The first time he had come to take himself up on his word and help Itachi with his sensory. Admittedly the boy's instruction had been rather helpful and he could find Izuna's chakra signature if he wasn't being very attentive to concealing it because of it but that didn't mean he appreciated the brat prancing around his room whenever he so desired.

At Itachi's words the boy's face fell like a meteor would from the sky. He looked crestfallen but Itachi knew better than to take it serious. After a few seconds, he was proven right as a sly smile appeared on Izuna's lips.

"I'm nine, I can go and do what I want and the staff will even praise me for it. You on the other hand," His smile became absolutely predatory as he hopped onto her head, "Have no right to call me out on what's proper and not. Practising the ninja arts is improper for a lady and fuinjutsu is one of those, you know."

Itachi refrained from denying being anything close to a lady, he was the matriarch's retainer after all. That and there was something more pressing.

"How did you know?" Again, he kept his face clear from conflict or guilt there was no point on showing emotions on his face that he didn't feel to begin with.

"I might have sneaked in here once or twice." The boy stroked Shisui's fur attentively which made the cat purr appreciably.

Itachi showed no visible reaction but he was quite uncomfortable with the idea of Izuna, or anyone, prancing around in his room when he was absent. Not that he had that much to hide, his notebook and tools were usually on his person when he went out, but shinobi generally hated it when their homes were trespassed by people that's why they mostly met up in bars or teashops.

"Hn." He decided not to comment on it.

"So… what are we going to do?"

"We? Nothing. I am going to have lunch with my… friends." He nearly winced at the last word.

Izuna stilled completely, hand hovering above a sleepy cat, before bursting. "What?! Itachi-nee why are you so cold?"

As grateful as Itachi was for Izuna's help with his sensory, he'd rather not spend any time with the boy if it could be helped. The boy unnerved him because he looked like Sasuke yet didn't act like him and frankly he felt guilty for spending time with his brother's lookalike while he had rarely done so with Sasuke himself.

Itachi turned his gaze on the boy. He was pouting expressively.

 _'Itachi-nii, why do you always treat me like such a pest…'_

The memory forced him to close his eyes, to stop looking at the young boy before him. It hurt, he really wanted… to spend time with his brother.

It felt like his wind pipe was contracting when he allowed himself to choke out. "Maybe next time."

He had told his brother there wouldn't be a next time and there was no way to change it. Even if he somehow managed to keep to world undeterred by his presence and both he and his brother would be born like they were supposed to, he would still carry out his duties and he would still have to sacrifice his time with Sasuke for it. _'Gladly'_ He tried to convince himself out of habit but it was weak, a wavering voice in his head that had once believed he would do anything for peace. Now he knew even he couldn't sacrifice all in the name of duty, even he couldn't kill what was most dear to him.

"Eh… alright next time is okay." Izuna was a master of reading emotions in once chakra and immediately felt there was something not quite right. While good at reading them he was, dealing with emotions was something he was terrified off, he preferred smiles and laughs and fun so he promptly scurried from the room.

It happened often since he got here. Itachi decided to call them 'breakdowns', moments that were marked by uncontrolled actions, moments where he regretted living the way he had. They had not appeared overnight, he knew, instead the regrets, the lapses in his control had been following him throughout his life ever trying to sink their pointed claws into his flesh and it seemed like they were finally able to. But as unpractical as they were, Itachi could deal with losing his sanity for short periods of time like when he strangled that. His mental stability had never been what it should be anyway.

Slaughtering his clan, mentally torturing his brother, living with the messed-up organisation called Akatsuki, he had never been able to overcome those tragedies, had never bothered to. Now that he had all the time to sort through his most painful experiences, he still didn't do it. He wasn't even sure he wanted to. Did he have the right to grieve, to mourn and to move on? Itachi's opinion was 'no'.

So he suppressed the regret and the grieving to the best of his abilities and moved his head up to confront the spitting image of his brother… Only to find himself alone.

The brat had left…

Itachi shrugged, all the better for him. Looking at the clock that hung above his door he decided it was time to grab a snack and find his way to the orphaned trio. He hadn't been lying to Izuna when he said he was going to go to them. Before passing through his door he grabbed some of those explosive tags in case he'd need them as a last resort.

After visiting the servant's kitchen and storing some fruit in his pouch he emerged from the head families house to enjoy the warm sunlight as he walked at a leisure pace through the alleyways behind the main shopping street. Dumpsters and crates filled with goods were littered at the side and the place wasn't commonly trespassed by non-shop owners. Perfect for him since he liked to avoid the people who greeted him with much regard because he had 'saved the clan'.

He stilled when he heard voices, voices he recognised. On flight instinct, he dived behind a dumpster as three boys emerged in the otherwise vacated street, all carrying crates. The boy taking the lead was, in Itachi's opinion, the most obnoxious cousin of Madara, Yoroko. He was loud, stupid and flirted shamelessly with Itachi whenever he had the chance, the chance Itachi was adamant to never give him again. Following just a step behind was Madara himself whom Itachi was also avoiding just because. The last boy was the most tolerable of the trio, Kanashi, the stoic one. Sad that he was practically glued together with his insufferable twin brother. They sometimes visited the main house to see their cousins

Itachi did not easily develop strong opinions of people so it was just his luck that he should cross paths with two of his least favourite people. In fact, he wouldn't be surprised if Orochimaru suddenly popped up behind him.

"Bah, I can't believe I have been degraded to this." Judging from the laughter in his voice it was Yoroko speaking. Their footsteps were coming closer.

"Perhaps it happened to you because almost brought a girl from an enemy clan into our compound. You're lucky Tajima only sentenced you to unpaid labour. He could have kicked of the active duty roster. It's what I would have done." The flat slightly accusing voice was Kanashi replying.

They were really close now and Itachi cursed when he heard them slow down. Pressing himself to the ground he watched their feet. Thee dull thuds indicated that the boys had put the boxes on the ground.

Shisui would choke on his laughter if he saw Itachi now. The Itachi Uchiha, hiding behind a dumpster like the timorous weasel he was named after.

"Oh, come on." Whined Yoroko. "You'd understand why if you had seen her. She was gorgeous!"

They moved away.

Madara spoke up. "You could always explain it to my mother. She could convince dad to let you off with a warning." The jest was obvious.

Itachi barely heard the next sentence as it faded in the distance. "Eh? No thank you! I like my privates where they belong, if you don't mind."

He almost huffed in annoyance at crossing them but refrained and moved back to the street to trudge towards the orphanage.

The meeting with his past roommates had been feeling strained recently, though he was sure it only felt like that because he knew Itsura wanted information from them because they hadn't changed a bit. No, they greeted him exactly as they always did, with a lot of enthusiasm. He tried to return the sentiment but fell short and it resulted into him sounding socially inept with a curve to his lips that looked more like a grimace than a smile, even by Uchiha standards. If it all came down to it, Itachi could be the spy and act spontaneous but he couldn't muster up the motivation to do so.

Usually he'd be happy (well happy was a big word) to just hang back and listen in on the conversation, inserting a 'hn' or nod every now and then to let them know he was paying attention. Perhaps he'd even ask a question if he needed more information on the subject to report back to Itsura.

But now Fuji immediately started off with something that required his attention.

"Chie, this letter arrived for you in our room." She held out a neatly rolled-up paper with a stamp on it.

"We know it's weird since everybody knows where you live now but it's for you." Ayama remarked.

Itachi took the letter and was about to put it away when he noticed the curious faces of his company. They were eager to know what was written in it and it made him consider reading it out loud.

Why not? He had been getting information off of them so why shouldn't they be allowed to hear what was written to him.

With a flick of his wrist he opened the letter and started reading, frowning from the first line.

 _Dear Chie_

 _The council would like to thank you for your deeds. We hope you can continue being an asset to the clan serving as Itsura-sama's retainer. Should you ever find yourself in need of something you can contact us through the orange tabby cat that usually can be found at the sentry tower._

 _Yours truly_

 _Elder Yuudai_

"How weird is that?" Ren immediately scoffed.

"Not at all! Of course, they want to thank Chie." Fuji reprimanded.

"What? Three weeks after it happened?!"

"Yes!" A back and forth commenced quickly between the two girls and Ayama was left to roll her eyes at Itachi who was deeply in thought by then. Ren was right this wasn't on time to be a real 'thank you'. The elders wanted something and if he had to guess from his own experiences with them in his time, they wanted eyes and ears on the clan head and his family.

Rage bubbled up inside him at being confronted by the schemes of the council once again, much like when he had faced Madara for the first time here. He didn't want anything to do with them and his anger build up as he analysed the letter. _'We hope you can continue being an asset'_ To whom? Not for the entire clan but for them. _'Contact us through the orange tabby cat'_ they wanted a meeting with him, or rather _he_ did. Elder Yuudai had despite mentioning the entire council, bothered to write his own name down the letter instead off 'the council' and he would bet both his eyes that the orange cat was a personal summon of this Yuudai person.

He crumpled up the letter in his hand and roughly shoved it in his pouch then he proceeded to stand up. "It's getting late, I have things to do." Well aware of how sharp his voice sounded, he took to the fastest way out of the compound, turning the outer layer of his kimono inside out.

 **XXXXXX**

The walk towards Chimachi was slowly helping him cast away his anger. That and there was something else to focus on, even though he'd rather not.

"I know your there." His voice still hadn't lost the steely edge from before as he turned around. There was some deliberate rustling of leaves behind him when Madara emerged from the shrubbery while patting the imaginary dirt from his standard navy Uchiha garb.

"So, you know how to sense chakra huh?" The thin disapproving line the boy's lips made did nothing to make Itachi feel the need to justify himself but Madara was suspicious of him and while there was nothing to be suspicious of, he wanted him to become clan leader after all, it could form a problem later on.

"I'm a sensory type, I was born with it." He explained blandly impatiently waving his hand as he started walking towards Chimachi again, not being able to stand the combination of the face of a stranger and familiar chakra. He couldn't wait for the boy to grow his hair out so he would look less like twelve-year-old Sasuke in the distance. Madara didn't throw anymore accusations his way instead he opted to stay silent. Which was odd, Itachi had expected him to be the type to always have an opinion ready about everything but it never came. It was fine that way, the silence, still he would have preferred it if the boy turned around and left.

Despite himself he allowed a small trickle of irritation to lace his voice. "Doesn't the heir of the clan have anything better to do than following servants around."

He couldn't see the boy's reaction anymore since he was turned away from him but he tried to read his chakra for anything, like really developed sensors were sometimes able to do. Madara was keeping his chakra well concealed though, he could barely feel his chakra let alone distinguish its mood.

"Mother have you a mission did she not."

"I don't need to be escorted, I've done these kinds of assignments before." Itachi said flatly.

He could almost feel the heat of his glare on his back when Madara said. "And did those assignments involve those two brand new kunai you kept?"

Itachi very nearly scoffed. And how did he know that? Izuna, that damnable brat had informed his brother. He had probably sneaked after Itachi without his knowledge and had seen him at work with those kunai.

"Have it your way." He said tonelessly dropping the conversation like a ton of lead. It wasn't like his distrust was unfound, Itachi had stolen those kunai after all.

It was quiet after that, neither of their footsteps made any noise a sign that was probably alerting Madara that yes, Itachi did know the shinobi ways. If he put some effort in it, he could hide it, being a shinobi, but again he didn't feel like it.

A few miles from the small city Itachi's hair rose in his neck before he sensed it.

"What in the world is that." Madara gasped as the air itself seemed to thicken around them, almost turning into syrup, making it hard to breath.

Suddenly a stream of civilians met them, hysterical, crying and frightened civilians. Madara glanced at him and signalled to get closer with a jerk of his head.

Itachi felt the blood draining from his cheeks and he felt light headed just by sensing what was around them. He knew that feeling… He knew that chakra…

The Kyuubi.

"We need to go back." He cursed the crack in his voice for making him sound so weak but he couldn't help it. In his previous lifetime he had thought the nine-tails' chakra to be almost unbearable but now that he was a sensor it truly felt like it was tearing at his skin, as if claws were cutting and tugging at his flesh. And there was something else in the air, something he didn't recognise but made the chakra hanging in the air all the denser and frightening. They needed to run, and they needed to do it now. Only that bull-headed Madara refused to move.

"No, we need to check it out. This could be important and we might need to report this to the clan."

Madara was right, as future clan head he was duty bound to look out for his clan and Itachi was duty bound to make sure Konoha came into existence so he couldn't let the boy go alone and get himself killed. So, with great reluctance he nodded.

With all his training to keep his expression non-existent something must have showed because Madara held out his hand and said. "Don't worry I can protect us." His nonchalance wasn't at all reassuring. It proved that the boy had no idea what he was up against.

Itachi pointedly ignored the hand and the sudden switch in attitude and took the lead. The part of his brain that was still capable of reason deduced that Madara was suddenly so kind because he found the image of a frightened girl much easier to swallow then the thieving, ninja-like one.

The boy quickly caught up to him and as the forest gave way to naked newly scared land the tremors became palpable and more civilians crossed their path.

"Oh… shit." Madara's sharingan was activated as he watched the pure horror before him. Itachi's breath caught in his throat. Never before had he seen something so utterly terrifying as he did then and there.

The Kyuubi and the Shukaku were tearing at each other like rabid animals, completely destroying the land around them as they shredded lips and tore off fur.

"What… are those?" Madara murmured next to a shocked Itachi.

"Biju." He replied almost automatically watching the people being trampled by the beasts as they fled the remains of the city. There was almost no city to speak of anymore so great was the devastation. Itachi did not notice the curious look being send his way.

The beasts broke apart and both opened their jaws. Dark, purple-ish chakra formed before each biju. The air around them became even thicker to the point where Itachi had to struggle to draw in a breath.

"Oh, that can't be good." Finally, some panic settled in Madara's voice and Itachi knew exactly what his sharingan was seeing. An impossible amount of chakra. Before they could run, the orbs were blown at each other and the world seemed to be swallowed by a blinding light that followed the explosion the impact made. An enormous shockwave tore across the land and even blew the biju apart and if both Itachi and Madara hadn't glued themselves to the ground with chakra they would have met the same faith. Next came the dust that gushed over the field with a painful force.

The two teenagers were barely able to see each other but when they met eyes they knew it was time to scram. Madara first rushed towards Itachi before they both turned away from the battlefield. They were met by two golden eyes. The Ichibi had merged his body with the earth only half of his head was visible and just barely because of dust filled air but those threatening eyes alone were intimidating enough.

Shukaku's jaws rose from the earth with surprising speed and Madara was barely able to clasp his hand around Itachi's arm before they closed around them and swallowed them whole.

 **XXXXXX**

 **My first cliffhanger! Hahahahaha... What do you think?**

 **Alright here comes a long AN of why I write things the way I do (feel free to skip):**

 **I don't think I'm seriously going to touch romance in this story, for one thing I don't know the first thing about romantic love and Itachi is difficult enough to write without adding that, also I don't think it's realistic in his current condition, but hey who knows. I'm not saying I won't, but it's highly unlikely.**

 **Yes Madara's parents are half decent people who care for each other and their children. I'm aware this isn't a very popular view on Madara's father since he forbade the friendship between Madara and Hashirama and totally disregarded his son's feelings on the matter. But I believe this could have stemmed from a healthy concern for his eldest child's life. Senju's could not be trusted after all. That and guys don't regard feelings, period! Frankly I believe you need strong parents to raise a strong kid that's why Itsura isn't the meek lamb most women were in that time and Tajima thinks being dominated by his wife rocks! (hahahaha so sorry)**

 **Itachi is a walking disaster who needs to find himself before he falls apart. That's what this story is about: him being given the time to reflect on his past and lick at his wounds. Only all these problems keep arising around him... His fighting abilities are far from fully developed but it is a start and I hope you like it. Some abilities will only appear later in the story anyway. As for where I want to go with this: The Catch is going to be around 150kt words long I think.**

 **As you've probably all noticed I've added the first curse words to this story and I'd like to say I don't/won't use them often. I believe they are a cheap shortcut on expressing what the character feels but the fact remains that normal human beings use them... so I will too.**

 **Now I love writing this story: It's my drug. But this is becoming messy... (I finally got everything down that I had assigned for chapter two... we are at chapter four, and I keep throwing random stuff in) So I need to make a new plan haha. Oh well!**

 **Thank you for the reviews! (I usually personally pm people when they review for the first time or ask a really good question but there were some guest reviewers)**


	5. Chapter 5!

**If you find any writing errors feel free to kindly inform me! I have written this on way too little sleep and I have dyslexia... which makes liking to write stuff more complicated xD**

 **XXXXX**

It was dark.

In all honestly Madara had expected to end up in the gross, slimy inside of a stomach but instead all he could feel was sand. It was everywhere, on his skin, in his nose and between his toes, while it was slowly crushing him. He did not panic, under the ground was a better predicament than inside a beast or whatever that was, instead he tried to move. His fingers twitched as he tried to move his arm outwards, to search for Itachi but the pressure was enormous and he couldn't move much.

He was running out of breath.

After a second failed attempt to look for her, fear finally settled in as he realised this was his fault and the girl was probably buried somewhere near him, dying. An ominous feeling pressed on chest. He should have listened to her when had she said they had to go back then they wouldn't have been in this fix. Then again this was too big to ignore and he knew it was his duty to at least try and report this back to the clan. Still he felt guilty for dragging Itachi into this. Yes, she knew how to sense chakra but she was still just a girl and she shouldn't have to end like this…

Maybe… if he could bring his hands together for a doton jutsu… But it was too late. The sand had hardened around him and whatever movement he had before was gone. He gritted his teeth as his stubborn side refused to give in. If he didn't have his hands he would do it without and he leaked massive amounts of chakra into the surrounding sand, trying to bend it to his will. Surely, he could conquer mere dirt with his chakra pushing it away from him but the sand fought back and wrapped around him tighter squeezing the breath out of him like a hungry constrictor. Pouring more chakra out he was becoming light-headed.

Faster than ever before he was draining himself of his chakra and as his ribs groaned in protest he stopped struggling with a last trash against his sandy prison before he stilled completely.

 **XXXXXX**

Itachi found himself in the strangest place he'd ever seen. Both the ceiling and the floor looked exactly the same, made of unworked earth and where earthy temples and towers erupted from below a perfect but upside down copy hung above it, all of them crumbling here and there. At first sight sand seemed to run down from a few sandpits in the ceiling but as Itachi looked closer he noticed the sand was going up.

He wondered why he was able to see. Where was the light source? There wasn't much time to wonder though as tanukis of all shapes and sizes started pouring out of the temples. They ran like starved dogs smelling a meal, their enthusiasm knowing no boundaries. Itachi was forced to run with the flow lest he be trampled by the bouncing furry creatures. This led him to the biggest temple of them all that held an enormous beast.

The Shukaku.

Its chakra swamped him, flooded his sensitive senses with its density. The monster wasn't in complete form, instead its lower half formed a big heap of sand. A meeting with Shukaku was the last thing he wanted so he tried to dive under the bigger tanukis but it was too late.

"Aha" The Shukaku practically giggled as the earth morphed into sand, shifting him forward and bringing him in front of the beast. Itachi tried not to be intimidated by the sand monster looming over him and maintained a straight face.

"Welcome," The creature gushed, "welcome in my kingdom. Impressive is it not?" There was no other way to describe its tone except pleasant though Itachi would have never believed a biju capable of such a thing let alone beginning with small talk. Picking his words carefully, he decided the polite approach would be the better one.

"It is certainly, sir." The dull sound of his voice had a hint of uncertainty in it. He assumed it was a sir, it sounded male at least.

A sad sigh came from the Shukaku and more sand ran down it's body on the ground that made Itachi take a few steps back so that he wouldn't stand in it.

"But look at the state it's in… If only you could see it in its glory days. Wouldn't you like to?" It still sounded pleasant though less cheerful as it stuck out a paw at the crumbling towers.

Itachi had a feeling this was more than regular small talk but remained polite, not willing to broach the subject. "I would." The dense chakra off the creature distracted him, preventing him from thinking straight and he couldn't figure out what its motives to bring him down here could be.

"You must know I am a very powerful being." It said smugly. "But even I cannot fix the world of the tanuki. You however can." Itachi did not like where this was going but the Ichibi continued. "These tanuki," it signalled towards the crowd of raccoon-dogs, "are summon animals. My summon animals. Just like Kurama has his foxes."

Kurama. He tensed. If the name had not been dropped in one of his dreams with Naruto he wouldn't have known who it belonged to but he still couldn't believe. How was it possible that these dreams gave him information, real information? He had believed the dreams were just a by-product of his slipping sanity, not really signifying anything but just fantasies his head provided for him. Briefly he searched his memory for any time the word Kurama had been mentioned in his past life but he knew it was futile. Even without the perfect memory the sharingan gave him, he knew he had never heard the name of the Kyuubi before in fact he had believed the Kyuubi was its name.

He quickly shut the confusion in his head down and scolded himself for losing his focus when he so clearly needed it. The Ichibi was right in front of him, talking to him and it wanted something from him. His dreams could wait.

The Shukaku explained further. "All biju have them, summon animals and a corresponding kingdom but sadly summoning contracts that involve biju aren't signed often, except those of that damned Matatabi because for some reason humans don't see the relation between cats and the big blue feline she is, but summon animals need a summoner to prosper."

Then it stared down on Itachi and asked. "Let's make a deal. You sign my contract and I'll leave all my power at your disposal. Hm, what do you say?"

"No." He didn't take any time to think, he didn't need it. As if he would get himself trapped into a deal with a tailed beast.

At the immediate rejection Shukaku whined loudly, voice becoming high. "Why not?!"

Itachi could think of many answers like: because I have sense enough in me not to fall for your summon animal sob story, because it will probably come back to bite me in the ass later since you're a biju, because it could mess with the future, because I-

His musings were interrupted by the Ichibi's following statement. "Don't you need it, Time-traveller?" Its voice had become low and slightly mocking.

Itachi struggled to keep his jaw into place and couldn't help the high pitch in his voice. "How do you know that?" Crossing his arms he gave a good Uchiha glare for the sake of his dignity.

"Oh that, Matatabi told us."

Well that told him absolutely nothing… Who was Matatabi and where did she get that knowledge? Actually… he knew who Matatabi was, Shukaku had basically told him before that she was one of the biju and a big blue cat could be nothing else but the two tails but it still didn't explain how it had discovered that he had time travelled, unintentionally so.

"But that is beside the point." Said the Shukaku. "What is important is that Matatabi also told us the future will be rather bleak for us tailed beasts and shinobi alike. Now I don't really care about your kind much - though I have no doubt you have already devised a plan to save them - what I need to know is what's in store for us biju."

He only briefly entertained the thought of spitefully informing the sand monster about his future life stuffed in a tea kettle but dismissed the idea right away. What was wrong with him to have such childish thoughts? There was no telling what disasters this would bring not only upon him but on the future as well because if he were a humongous sand monster he sure as hell would do anything in his power to prevent that from happening

"I'm not telling you anything about the future." Itachi said calmly. He wasn't concerned for his life, he had already lived and died so the thought didn't scare him anymore even if the presence of a biju could still evoke a natural fright out of him.

For the first time the demon lost its demure act and it started to rise as a scowl broke out on its face but before it could do something about its dismay a strong surge of chakra washed through the room. It was as formidable as the Shukaku's chakra and Itachi briefly believed the Kyuubi was near until it. Dread ran through him as he turned his head to the source. It came from above but all he could see was the rocky ceiling and he missed how the ichibi also stuck its nose in the air with a curious glint in his eyes. The maniacal laughter that soon boomed through the underground kingdom did not went unnoticed by Itachi and he snapped his head towards the beast desperation clawing at him.

"Boy that one's strong. Too bad for him his chakra nature isn't primarily earth otherwise he might have been able to overthrow me. Ha imagine that!" The biju purred mockingly after his giggles died down.

"Let him go!" Itachi despised how uncontrolled he sounded at that moment but he the fear of losing his future was drowning out his calm demeanour.

"Tell me about the future then." A smug smile appeared on the monster's face.

He wasn't surprised really, having even expected it. The reason why he stood still like a statue and acted equally mute was because he didn't see a way out of this without ruining the future. He could either let himself and Madara be killed and the future would be screwed or he could tell the biju what he wanted to know and the future could potentially be equally screwed - because he couldn't seriously hope that the Shukaku would be fine with being sealed in a teapot – and that was assuming that the sand monster wouldn't kill them after he told it everything.

Only when Madara's chakra started weakening he spat out. "Alright! Alright, I'll tell you." With a look somewhere in between a glare and an expectant expression he looked up at the beast. It rose and eyebrow (well… one without hair that is).

"I'm waiting." It sang gleefully. The chakra was fainting quickly now.

Itachi put on a full on glare, hurting his face in the process. It had been a while since he had been this expressive. "Not before I see him. Alive." He sounded menacing not mortified like he really was. All that went through his head was ' _Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke,…_ ' like a mantra as the chakra complete died out leaving a disconnected blanked of energy over the place.

The monster clacked its sandy tongue and sighed. "Fine."

The ceiling rumbled and spat out Madara like a glob of mucus. The boy was racing towards the ground at an alarming pace making Itachi summon his own chakra to his legs. He burst towards the falling Uchiha with a speed that surprised himself as he had never augmented the speed of his current body to its full potential.

Before he could reach Madara though, a cloud of sand caught him and brought him to the ground, at the same time sand caught Itachi around his middle and stopped his sprint short even dragging him back to where he came from. He didn't fight it. Madara was alive, covered with dusty sand, struggling to keep his eyes open but alive. In all honestly Itachi was surprised he was even awake with that little chakra left.

He was flung on the floor before the beast's feet, barely managing to catch himself from falling.

"So, your turn." The monster said with a feigned nonchalance.

There was no way he could tell the creature about how the first Hokage had sealed them all with his unique mokuton ability, it would end disastrously with nine biju hunting down the Shodai Hokage who was at this point no older than Madara and would most likely be beaten. No first Hokage meant no Konoha and no Konoha meant no shinobi civilisation but more importantly, no Sasuke. He had to think of something, and fast because the silence was becoming suspicious. Pein's plan to set the biju loose on world would probably not sound too bad for the creature, as causing mayhem and death was probably its favourite past time, and he didn't know what _Mada-_ Tobi's plan had been for the biju's. Why did he suddenly feel like he couldn't think as fast as he used to?

He crossed his arms and straightened his back. If he wanted to get out of this alive - still assuming the Shukaku wouldn't kill him after he'd spilled the beans - he couldn't afford to make any mistakes. Before opening his mouth he checked the distance between himself and Madara and hoped it was far enough for the boy not to hear anything, it would make for difficult questions later on.

"I wasn't born around the time it happened. My future life didn't overlap with the event you're talking about." The monotone note in his voice only seemed to aggravate the beast as it's face transformed into an ugly scowl again.

"You la-"

Itachi held up his hand to stop the Ichibi's tirade from coming to being and yelled, "BUT," for good measure, stopping a bit to rest his throat that was unfamiliar with such volumes before continuing quietly, "We had one in our village."

A deafening silence followed his statement.

"A what?" The beast then asked perplexed.

"Oh, I don't really know how it worked or what to describe it as," Itachi continued on vaguely, "After all nobody really liked to talk about the jinchūriki." To add something that would peek the monster's interest he looked around hastily, as if fearful, and curled in on himself as if he was leaning closer to a person on eye level to tell them a secret. "We had the..," He paused deliberately and noticed how the beast also came closer. "The kyuubi." His voice sounded somewhat frightful of the being's name. The Ichibi looked wide eyed at Itachi.

"You had Kurama? How? What do you mean? What's a jinchūriki? "

Inwardly Itachi smiled, everything was going good so far, outwardly he looked as if he was reluctant to divulged the next pieces of information, stressing his scared tone a bit more than before but keeping it present while revealing information that could have him legally executed. "Yes, we did. It was that horrible blond kid he had… whisker marks." A blatant lie, he had been pretty neutral about the boy, perhaps he had found him a little loud at most.

"What's a jinchūriki?" The Shukaku hissed, instinctually feeling it was an important piece of information to have.

Itachi had no idea how the biju in front of him would react to what he was about to say and braced himself. "They are humans who jail a biju inside of them."

A moment a painful soundlessness passed. Then all hell broke loose.

"WHAT?!"

The Tanukis scattered to all places as sand from the sandpits started bursting outwards aggressively, some even transported away, to where Itachi didn't know. But the sandpits weren't the only things acting up, the ground started shaking and the Shukaku himself was also shooting his own sand in all directions, all the while screaming bloody murder.

Itachi backed up from the beast immediately but it's reach was great and it swung a giant arm at him in its fury. The wind created by the arm's momentum blew aside his bangs as he dove for the ground. He didn't have the time to catch himself right and fell painfully flat on the hard ground like diving wrong in the water from a significant height. On the ground he snaked his hand in his pouch and pulled out a kunai and one of his own explosive tags. While getting back up he wound the paper around the handle. Sand shot at him as he threw it and he pushed himself to the side as he folded his hands to detonate the tag.

He jumped over another jet of sand and started putting distance between himself and the monsters. _'Shit!'_ He cursed silently, so unlike him. The tag had not detonated and he didn't have any jutsu in his arsenal of that magnitude to throw of the biju.

Frantically he looked around for any quick escape route. Instead he saw Madara standing on wobbly legs and sand erecting like closing jaws around him. _'Shit!'_ He thought again and he shunshined right towards him.

There were a few ground rules connected to the shunshin technique that made it a higher ranked jutsu than its actual difficulty. While not really difficult to master it was dangerous to apply in battle, in fact ninja were actually dissuaded from using it when in direct contact with the enemy. This was for a couple reasons one of them being that during the shunshin you lost all sense of smell, sight and hearing because you were moving too fast for those senses to catch up which made you vulnerable for any sharp (or blunt) objects that moved your way and considering it wasn't real transportation which meant you stayed tangible the entire way… Well you got the point. No shinobi was able to use shunshins in battle, except one… Shisui had figured a trick to get around this restriction.

But he hadn't and because of that he had put off practising with it. The result: his knee crashed painfully into a low wall of sand making him fly forward and crash into Madara. Both of them tumbled to the ground, skidding a few feet forward.

Madara groaned but tried to get up again immediately pulling Itachi up with him but since both of them were unsteady from the blow it turned into a team effort of pulling, tugging and swearing.

They barely had time to share a look of panic before the sand moved again. Itachi didn't notice the screams of the Shukaku had died down or that the tanukis were calming down all he heard was the pounding in his ears as the sand closed around them again. Thinking quickly, he saw a group of tanukis transporting themselves away. It was a risk, having no idea where they were going but if he could just get to one, get them to transport him with them.

He grabbed hold of Madara's shoulder more securely whom grunted, readying himself for a shunshin. The sand suddenly wrapped around his arm and he burst away from it soon after, it tearing his sleeve – and a good deal of skin – off.

 _"Yelp!"_ A tanuki cried when the both of them fell on top of it. Itachi tried to hold onto it so that it could transport them away but it fought tooth and nail to get away from him and it wasn't a small specimen. When four sharp claws racked across his face, coming a bit too close to his eye, Itachi instinctively flinched away. He swore under his breath when the raccoon-dog got away from under him and bit his arm for good measure, his body wasn't conditioned to supress reactions like that, like he used to and his face burned where he had been hit more painfully than he could remember wounds like that being.

There was a shift in atmosphere and that was all the warning they got. A deafening blast resonated through the room and a heat started approaching his back all in the spilt second it took to clench his abused hand around the tanuki's tail, and the other on Madara's arm. Just as he felt his feet lifting from the earth caused by the force of the explosion the world around him disappeared.

For a moment he felt like his body was floating in all directions and all he could think of was: _'My tag exploded after all.'_

Then for the umpteenth time his face met the ground.

 **XXXXX**

"Oooww." Madara groaned as he tried to get to his feet, again. His head was pounding with a chakra exhaustion and his body was complaining with various bruises from being dragged and thrown around as well. As he stood he rubbed his temples and told himself to man up. But seriously if he had a ranking list for terrible days this one would almost reach top ten, which was saying something considering the number of bad days he had already experienced.

It had been a long time since he had felt this bad as well. With chakra reserves like his it wasn't easy to burn through it all. He looked around and found Itachi lying face down on the road, unmoving. Unease went through him but his emotions seemed to be dulled with tiredness as he stumbled towards her. She stirred before he reached her which calmed him back into the exhausted numbness he had been feeling before. A strange sound between a pained cry and a sigh came from her and he found himself asking, "You alright?" He sounded gruff and uncaring, like usual.

Slowly she got up and he saw her grit her teeth when she nodded and pushed herself up with her hands. One of them looked off, there was more space between the second and the third knuckle than there should be and the hand looked oddly swollen and purple-ish.

He didn't comment on it partially because it was only one of the so many wounds she had, one of the more severe ones being four tear wounds on her face with one dangerously close to her eye, and partially because there was no point in talking about it if they couldn't get her to a proper medic first and that would be awhile judging from the scenery. There were no cities that big near their compound.

' _Okay… stay calm. Everything's fine._ ' He told himself. Except that it wasn't. He was kami knows where with no chakra and his standard 'short outing' equipment on. On top of that his only defence came in the form of and admittedly rather tall girl – who was also admittedly more proficient in the shinobi way than he had guessed – who certainly didn't like him much and while she had surprised him with her quick thinking and calm demeanour in front of a beast like that, a few sloppy shunshin weren't going to convince him she could save them again. And did he mention she didn't like him.

He shook his head. He was being silly. Sure, she didn't like him but she had just proven she wasn't about to let him die. She could have gotten away easier without him and that she hadn't done so proved that she didn't really want him dead. Besides one monstrous sand raccoon that tried to eat them was enough bad luck to last them a while.

Right?

Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Itachi move again.

He turned towards her to find her pointing towards the great city that wasn't that far away. "Let's go there." She said with her ever even voice.

"No, that suicidal. In a city that big, there is bound to be an anti-ninja guard and I don't have the chakra to pull off a proper henge right now." It was almost painful to admit he was the weak one for the moment. Scratch that, it _was_ painful.

"But I do." Said Itachi. "And I'm the one who needs it. All you have to do is get off that dirt off you and you'll be fine. It's our best shot at finding out where we are, assuming you don't know."

That's right she was the one who looked roughed up and he was the one who could pass as a civilian boy. A bitter taste entered his mouth. How embarrassing that he was uninjured while she had plenty.

"Hn." He said grumpily and started trekking towards the city, she followed suit. She limped a bit but it didn't seem very serious.

As they moved through the dry, rocky landscape in silence his anger at the situation started to wane and made place for curiosity. That sand thing… it had been very strong, yet he had never heard of it before and there was that other one too, the fox. He glanced at Itachi. She had said something, called them something but he couldn't remember having been too distracted by the two monsters. Asking again wouldn't hurt, he decided.

"What was that thing?"

Itachi remained silent for a few seconds and though her expression didn't change, he was pretty sure she was considering telling him or not. "A biju." She answered eventually.

'What's a biju?' Was the next question that came to mind but he bit his tongue. For some reason, he had a feeling she wouldn't appreciate giving long explanations to all his questions so he tried to spare up his chances of getting an answer for the questions he really wanted answers to.

"How… do you know that?" It was a creature made of chakra, that much he had felt, and how **come** his mother's retainer knew about such things? Not that he was suspicious of her, not anymore, but it was still… something he wanted to know.

"It's a story is it not?" With her even tone, it was hard to notice she had asked a question.

He thought about it for a moment but he couldn't remember a story that mentioned biju or beastly manifestations of chakra.

His lack in recognition was soon noticed by his companion and she frowned at him, an unusual sign of emotion from her.

"Sage of the six paths." She said tersely.

Oh, that did ring a bell. He'd be sure to look it up later. Taking note of how Itachi was still frowning at him he quickly said. "Yeah, that story about the creation of ninja's, right?"

She nodded once and turned away from him. Well that could have gone better but at least it was a respectable answer. He still had tons of question but decided to lay off for now.

She was a mystery to him, certainly after the events of today. His vision of her seemed to change every day, from a hero to suspicious from a thief to savior and from a simple girl to a… warrior. There was a part of him that hated not knowing, not being able to sort a person in a category and it fed his curiosity. Retainers were taught certain things other women weren't, like how to hold a blade properly, but there was no way that things like chakra manipulation and techniques such as the shunshin were a part of their training. And then she had saved his life, twice – because he was pretty sure she had made some sort of deal with the creature to save him from suffocation – even though she would have had a better chance to survive without doing so. For a moment, he had to resist the urge to ask her whether she was a boy or something hired by his mom to pretend to be a girl. Questions like that were likely to offend most girls, he reminded himself. Something was off here though, and he was so damn curious.

Despite his resolve not to ask her things anymore he found himself mumbling quietly, "Why do you want to be a shinobi?" Because if there was one thing he knew it was that she was training to be a shinobi, if she wasn't one already. The shunshins had been the more obvious evidence but it showed in many other ways, her silent footsteps, her alertness, the toneless shinobi like way she spoke, her calloused fingers,…

A silence dragged on so long that he thought she would refuse to answer until she slowly started formulating an answer.

"To… to protect what I hold dear I suppose." There was something different in her voice when she said that, something guarded, well more than it usually was. She looked up at the sky, eyes drained of all emotion.

He grimaced. She was an orphan and had most likely lost things… people. It made sense that she wanted a way to prevent that from happening again, not that he would advise young girls to start learning the ninja arts on their own but it was a reason he could respect. Still, he didn't want to thread on dangerously emotional territory by starting about the war and their lost ones. Just thinking about it sharply reminded him of his own losses, his dear brothe- no he wasn't willing to think about it. The only one he ever told was Hashirama and that was a mistake, he reminded himself.

Desperately wanting to save the (his own) mood he asked, "So what have you learned already?"

She turned her gaze upon him. "Are you trying to interrogate me?" her voice was as blunt as a log.

He almost winced and answered with a wry smile. "No..." His head couldn't come up with a less awkward response and he turned himself away from her closing the conversation. Having conversations with adults was not the problem, they were usually all business, the issue was people his own age who were simply uncomfortable of his communication tactics and to be honest he wasn't exactly comfortable with them either, their mind sets were just too far apart. His mother had once told him that it was a problem all prodigies faced but that didn't make it any less annoying… or lonely.

"Hn." Was all the answer he got.

They soon found a path that lead directly to the city's gates, in the distance they saw trade caravans moving, bringing their merchandise to the city and Itachi started working on her henge.

To his surprise, it was a man. And he was taken aback by how complete this henge was. It was a tall man in his early twenties who could easily pass as an Uchiha with jet black hair tied in a low ponytail and obsidian eyes that were as emotionless as Itachi's own. Despite the get up of a civilian from good breeding he looked a bit too ninja in Madara's opinion but oh well, it would scare of most people if nothing else.

He stopped himself from asking 'what's with the stress lines?' only just in time and continued walking in silence.

They looked like they would be family, brothers or cousins it didn't really matter, which added to the realism of the illusion.

When they entered the gates of the city without any suspicious glances, although a few women did give Itachi funny looks but he wasn't worried about that, they immediately made for the busy centre where they could mingle with the crowd.

 **XXXXXX**

Itachi was positive there was something very wrong with his right knee. It had started protesting not minutes after he had started walking, throbbing and aching badly. But he couldn't let it show too much, not when he was undercover in a city like this. His hand and partially skinless arm, that had bite wounds in it, also hurt but were easier to hide, the claw wounds on his face didn't bother him as much anymore aside from feeling very warm and slightly stingy.

There were samurai guards everywhere, on standby in case a shinobi started acting up. It once again reminded him that ninja weren't welcome in the cities, especially not in these times and this was a large city. The place was vaguely familiar as well. Stone buildings towered over them creating narrow roads that too many people had to pass through. Both he and Madara were shoved and pushed in all directions, the people so busy with their daily lives that a glaring Madara _and_ Itachi didn't faze them, at all.

Eventually they found their way to a more tourist friendly part of the city and Madara was able to get a hand on a thrown away map. It was a map of the city itself so it didn't really help them to find their way home but it did tell them where they were.

"Shihonkyu? We're in the capital?" Madara said perplexed.

Shihonkyu… it was the capital of the earth country. With dread Itachi wondered how far they were from the relative safety of the Uchiha compound.

"Do you know the way home from here?" He asked, sounding calm.

Madara nodded. "Yeah it should be around a week's travel to the north."

That was way better than he had hoped. All this time the Uchiha compound had been hidden in the cooler parts of the earth country.

The entered a square and Itachi was just about to say they should better get going when they heard a loud shout. "Hey you!" A samurai was coming their way and once again they locked eyes. Both of them sprang into action, running off the square and into a section of small deserted streets.

"Agh." Itachi couldn't help but shout when his foot twisted over a loose cobblestone. A sharp stab moved into his injured knee when he readjusted his weight on it and his henge dropped accidentally. Madara didn't ask any questions but just grabbed him by his arm and dragged him along. They stopped deep into a more destitute part of the city, where shady little bars were plenty, to catch their breath.

"Shit, I don't have enough chakra for all this running around."

Itachi could see Madara was embarrassed for admitting it, not that he was faring any better, his leg was killing him.

They waited for a while but nothing happened.

"You know," Madara started, "I get a feeling that guy wasn't talking to us to begin with…"

"Hn" Itachi agreed. But there was no point in looking back on it. A quick flight instinct helped a ninja survive.

"Let's go. The sooner we are out of here, the better."

Madara agreed in similar fashion as Itachi had before, with a trademark 'hn' but after that he seemed to think of something. "Oh, is that leg of yours alright? Because when I said 'a week's travel' I had meant it to be at medium shinobi speed."

Great, it was going to take kami knows how long for him to limp back to the compound. He shook his head for Madara who in turn frowned and crossed his arms.

"Well then I'd sugge-"

A door from one of the bars opened near them and a surprised voice called out. "Madara?"

Itachi didn't have a view on the strangers behind them – he could sense two – but he got a good look on Madara's face which turned from taken aback to horrified to the desperate anger of a cornered animal.

"Hashirama."

 **XXXXXX**

 **And here it is guys! Probably my shortest chapter yet xD (and it took me the longest to write) it wasn't out of a lack of motivation, trust me I loved writing this chapter, really I did. and while it had more events that should happen in this, I decided this was an exciting moment to cut it off (haha, I'm developing some sort of sadism, no sorry guys I thought this was just a great ending)**

 **The next chapter is also full off action (perhaps not in the fighting sense, maybe it is, but since I realized how boring my first few chapters were I decided to make the chapters in a faster pace, which I hope you enjoy)**

 **Yes, Madara is an awkward somewhat chatty teenager for the moment which is not how we all imagine our favorite villain of Naruto but he is a young teenager right now and if you look at the Madara and Hashirama episode, Madara is a bit bratty and prideful but good natured as well (feel like I'm repeating myself) He is more subdued in this chapter because of his damaged pride, confusion and chakra exhaustion.**

 **EDIT: I made Madara less chatty but no less awkward xD**

 **Well, see you guys in two weeks!**


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: Chapter's a bit rushed and I haven't had the chance to correct errors yet but please enjoy!**

xxxxx

Itachi shoulders stiffened at the sound of the name and part of him felt traitorous to think of _the_ Hashirama Senju as a threat but he knew that in this time, it was only logical for him to be one. Before the peace treaty between the two clans, the first had murdered plenty of Uchiha. Then again, he had always practically hero worshipped the man for what he had accomplished even if it wasn't war-proof.

He turned around slowly, eyes widening at the sight of a twelve-year-old Hashirama and an even younger, chubby-cheeked Tobirama. The white-haired child looked cute, even with the massive glare, until he said.

"Ni-sama, he's out of chakra. Let's kill them now!"

Madara stiffened next to him and he too felt on edge yet didn't dare reaching for his weapons in case his opponents would notice. But Hashirama simply looked at the two of them, eyes shifting from one to the other as if trying to find something. Apparently, Tobirama wouldn't act without his brother's approval because he shouted. "Ni-sama!"

"Calm down Tobirama, we're not at war right now. We're not killing anybody."

"Well aren't we lucky that Water and Wind haven't officially declared war yet." Madara remarked, sounding somewhat bitter.

Raising his fist, nine-year-old Tobirama sneered. "Very lucky!"

Hashirama smiled sadly, ignoring his brother. "We don't have to go to war, you know. We could change things."

It was a surprise, for Itachi, that the First Hogake was already trying to stop the wars at this age. He turned his head towards Madara when he heard the boy sigh.

"No, we can't. We've already had this discussion."

Really, Both of them? Itachi had expected… more animosity from Madara somehow, instead he just sounded plain old tired like so many war born shinobi. It made him wonder if Madara really was the conflict hungry traitor that the history books made him out to be. Yes, he knew the man had eventually signed a peace treaty with Hashirama but it was widely believed he did it because the clan pressured him to, not because he wanted peace.

"But we can!" Hashirama actually pouted when he said that, something that took Itachi completely off-guard. _The_ creator of the village system, pouting?

"Oh? And how will we do that?" Again, Madara sounded more tired than anything else, as if he had asked the question many times before to Hashirama and… to himself.

"I… We'll just…" Hashirama was trying very hard to come up with an answer but in the end, he had to concede. "I don't know yet, okay. But, two geniuses like us should be able to figure it out." The boy puffed up his chest when he said that while his little brother pretended to be dry heaving.

"… riiiiight." Madara deadpanned.

A conversation between the two strongest shinobi of the world, even if they sounded like the twelve-year-olds they were, was a unique event to watch. Itachi was sure Hashirama wasn't purposely ignoring his kid brother but rather… there was only room for Madara and himself when they talked. At least that was the idea Itachi got. Still, he was surprised by the causality between the two of them, Madara wasn't even trying to find an opening to slip away as if he instinctually knew the other wouldn't attack.

The conversation stopped for a while. Nothing happened except the two boys continued to stare at each other and Tobirama rolled his eyes. Then Hashirama shrugged. "Well, I'll give a solution some more thought and get back at you when I have one. You should think about it too. Until then: see ya!"

Madara mumbled. "Like I haven't already." As Hashirama walked off with his brother following behind him looking like he had ate a dozen of limes he shouted one last thing at Madara. "Or we could just wait until we're older and sign a peace treaty between the clans!"

Madara glared at his back. "You idiot, that'll never work!"

"Why not?" He hadn't meant to say anything but he found himself unable not to ask. The caught in the headlights expression that followed was one of a person who had forgotten there was somebody else present.

"I… don't ask." Was the only reply before he turned around and walked off. He limped after Madara, quickly falling behind to a point where he had to call the other back. It was rather embarrassing but tripping over that stone earlier had done something to his already damaged knee.

Madara bore a frown. "I think I saw a pharmacy somewhere over there." He pointed south. The boy must have somehow sensed Itachi didn't want help because he didn't offer any aside from slowing his pace enough for him to be able to follow.

A hum came from Madara when he looked up at the position of the sun. "It's getting quite late."

 **XXXXXX**

"It's getting late."

Her fingers tapped on the surface of the table. A sign of weakness that, under normal circumstances, Itsura would have never allowed herself. But things weren't normal. Her eldest son wasn't here to set the table and watch her cook like he usually did. While he made a point to free his schedule for this, every day, without a fail.

When she sensed her youngest son entering the house she immediately left the kitchen.

"Hi, mom." The young boy greeted.

"Izuna, have you seen your brother anywhere?"

A pang of pain shot through her hart as she waited for the question that would never come. Never again would he ask her 'which one?' because there was only one other left.

"No, he isn't with you?" Izuna sounded a bit fearful when he asked her.

She shook her head holding herself together like she always did.

"Well, he went with Itachi to Chimachi…"

Oh? Come to think of it her newest retainer hadn't returned yet either. Something must be holding them up, but in the shinobi world that 'something' was rarely an innocent thing and more likely something out to kill you.

"I can try to sense them, you know ni-san isn't that good in concealing his chakra." Actually, he was… but if you weren't a sensor yourself you could never learn to hide the way they did. It was a good thing sensors were rare and not every unit had the luck of having one. There were only three in the Uchiha clan, only one of them was male.

"Izuna don't be silly. You can't sense him all the way to Chimachi." Even she wasn't that good and she had taught him.

"No," He admitted, sounding small and withdrawn as opposed to his usual boisterous behaviour. "But maybe he's on his way back?"

She had no hope for that, not much at least. Still she said. "Go ahead sweetie." With a calm and controlled voice, even adding a little smile that she didn't feel.

Izuna closed his eyes, concentrating, the one thing that made sure sensors weren't invincible. They had to concentrate to use the full capacity of their skill, to spread their reach as far as possible.

"M-mom!"

She nearly jumped when the raw voice of her son broke through the silence that had momentarily descended upon them. The face of her son drained of all colour and his eyes were open wide in panic. Before she could ask him what was wrong he snapped out of it.

"Mother you need to check this! I-it's not normal." The crack in his voice made it all the more apparent how young he really was.

She closed her eyes as well and felt around for chakra in direction of Chimachi… and chakra she felt. Dark malicious chakra in such density that even all the way here it pushed against her senses in a painful way. It was pure evil, so hateful that it could never have belonged to even the most rotten among humans. It was… it was the devil.

The door opened and her husband entered. Clueless of what was going on he asked. "What are we having for diner?"

"Tajima," She addressed him evenly but with an urgency that immediately got his attention. "Assemble a squad, we need to leave."

He turned around in a split second barely taking the time to say 'at the gate in ten minutes' before rushing out of the house he had only just entered.

He didn't question her, he never did.

 **XXXXXX**

"I had never expected you to be capable of such a thing." Itachi couldn't help but remark. How surreal the whole situation was had not dawned upon him before. He hadn't ever questioned if what he was experiencing was real or not. Yes, he had briefly theorised the chance of this being one elaborate genjutsu but he had never believed it and had promptly dismissed even the idea of it.

"Only as a desperate measure." Madara explained coolly, pretending that his cheeks weren't gradually reddening.

Oh, but it had dawned upon him now, how _crazy_ this thing was. He had just rolled with it, from the moment he knew what was going on he had accepted it as the truth. Had his insane missions for ANBU and Akatsuki made unresponsive to weird situations? Well to be honest that was most likely a good thing. The reaction of a person like, take Naruto for example (the first person to come to his mind after appearing so much in his dreams) would have left him screaming bloody murder and running around like a flailing madman trying to find an explanation that would never come.

A laugh bubbled up his throat but he held it in, like most of his reactions. He sat on a stone wall like languid cat allowing some of the smug humour he felt to show on his face. "You are a master seducer."

"Shut up!" What had begun as a 'barely there' blush turned into a deep shade of red as Madara lost his composure. He turned around to hide his embarrassment, arms crossed and nose the air. "We have the supplies don't we so don't lecture me on how I got it."

"I'm not preaching." He said while shrugging.

Yes, so incredibly surreal. He was talking to _the_ Madara Uchiha who happened to be a child and he kept somehow forgetting who the child really was. Alright, to be honest the boy didn't exactly have a great record of living up to expectations. First, he turned out to be a brat who quickly jumped to conclusion but just as easily changed his mind with a control-freak issue on top of it. No problem there, he could see the future Madara in that with a bit more violence and a bit less chit-chat. But then he turned out be peace orientated and mind blowing enough, also a bit… naïve. For somebody who was born in the era of warring states he was surprisingly childlike. By the time Itachi had been that age all the immaturity had been squashed out of him but Madara… Either he was too bull-headed to admit the world dark place and you had to try and shield yourself from the pain it threw at you or somebody had been sheltering him. His guess was a bit of both was at play here.

Madara squinted his eyes. "You talk nothing like the other girls."

Oh yes, he did not practise it but he knew of the basic courtesy codes a woman had to use in her speech. Let the man do the talking was rule number one, as impractical as that sounded for women were, in general, way more skilled when it came to talking.

But a girl was to only help create an ideal conversation environment for the man, inquire about subject they liked, never start on one of your own. There were countless other complex mannerisms a girl was taught in these times and while Itachi didn't know all of them he was sure that laughing – so to speak – at the expense of the man wasn't one of them.

He shrugged in response, having had enough of talking for the day, his good mood was over. The brief deviation in his usual stoic behaviour was uncalled for yet refreshing but they were out in unfamiliar territory with little weaponry on them. They were tired, wounded – in his case – and filthy, in other words they could be described as easy targets and it was time to get serious and also to remember he was in the presence of one of the greatest traitors Konoha had ever managed to produce, not some silly boy he could jest with. It was stupid of him to jest at all, not that it didn't happen. He liked playing with the minds of people he didn't plan to kill, a sadistic streak he had developed thanks to his cousin and his 'innocent' fun.

"We should leave." Itachi said while carefully testing out his knee. A pressure bandage offered some support but it still felt pretty bad, and it was swollen too.

He checked the bandage on his arm, it was blood free so far, a good sign. They had left his face unattended safe for some healing ointment. Ointment that they hadn't set out to get but well... the pharmacy's owner had set out for some rare herbs, leaving her teenage daughter in charge for a few days. A cute 'boy next door' smile from Madara with some well-placed compliments while adding a sob story about being robbed by bandits and the girl had practically thrown her supplies at him. Itachi who had been hiding just out of sight had been stunned. Madara had appeared like the awkward kind of kid but there he was, charming a girl a few years his senior with what seemed like practised ease.

"We should get something to eat first." Madara commented.

"There's no time for that, we need to get out of here. We'll live of the land." They were shinobi, they couldn't waste any more time in hostile territory.

"The faster I get to eat, the faster my chakra will replenish. The land here is bare, whatever we'll find it won't be enough for a fast recovery. And you'll need to eat too, your wounds will heal better with decent food." There was a hint of irritation in Madara's voice as he added. "You need to stop questioning me."

Itachi didn't think he'd been questioning the boy that much, not as much as he should at least. A snide remark popped in his head and he didn't stop himself from coolly saying it. "I followed you when you wanted to see those biju and look where that got me."

Madara grimaced. "Well… I'm sorry okay? But I'll make sure we'll get home in one piece. You just need to trust me." The boy knew how to say what the other wanted to hear so he could get his way. He wondered where he got that from, his mother came to mind.

Trusting the boy, or anybody, was out of the question for a man like him but there was no point in arguing about these things.

"Hn." He signalled Madara to take the lead with a wave of his hand towards the road. They used Itsura's money to buy themselves simple food, knowing she wouldn't object if it helped her son get back home. Itachi was surprised they didn't run into anymore Senju nor did any of the samurai find them suspicious. With the bad luck that had been recently haunting him he wouldn't have been surprised with suddenly finding themselves being chased down by the nine-tails. But they were able to leave the city without a hitch.

At that moment, he found himself able to sympathise with Tsunade Senju a bit, whenever she had any luck, she could expect enormously bad luck to compensate for it later.

Why did he have a feeling that this was like that, the quiet before the storm.

 **XXXXXX**

"Oh kami, no…" Itsura felt her body trembling with numerous emotions, fear, misery and loss among them. Her husband stared ahead with his mouth slightly open as the men he had gathered, some of their best, where white-stricken with disbelief.

The city of Chimachi was in ruin, bodies littering the ground as they walk through the few walls still standing. There were no complete buildings anymore to speak of and no life to be seen as their soldiers checked every corps they came across to look for a familiar one. They wouldn't find it here, Itsura knew, Madara's chakra had hung heavily outside of the devastation, mixed with the monstrous ones. He had never even made it to the city, but she couldn't bring herself to voice such things as Izuna clung to her hand like a lifeline. Although, he must have sensed it too.

"If we don't find him here," Tajima stopped to even out his voice. "He could have fled to the forest to hide from whatever it was that did this. We'll look there next."

It was a tragedy, really, that Itsura had been in this situation too often to so much as hope that her son had survived. On the outside, she praised her husband for his good idea and squeezed Izuna's hand reassuringly, on the inside she went numb with the loss of her fourth son.

Once they found out he was truly dead, and they would, she would help her only remaining son through the loss, smile and support him. But after he was either old enough to start his own family or died like the rest of his siblings, she could finally truly fall apart, and stop smiling forever.

Such were the duties of a mother.

 **XXXXXX**

Madara had been right, Itachi begrudgingly admitted, the terrain around Shihonkyu was completely barren and insufferably hot. It was a good thing that they had refilled their canteens inside the city because there was no water source nearby that they could see. The land was rocky and dusty with no living animals around.

Hours later they reached the first vegetation since the start of their journey. He almost sighed in relief when they hit the shade that the treeline offered, it was a pathetic forest compared to those of Konoha with small shaky trees that had more dried out leaves than green ones but he felt better among them than out in the open like they had been before. Sweat soaked the heavy material of his inner robes and the hair above his neck and the heat combined with his injuries had exhausted him fast.

Madara was in no better shape, without chakra to protect him from the sun, his skin had gained a bright red colour and any physical exercise became harder without the chakra that a ninja naturally applied in everything they did. Worse yet, they were walking uphill.

"We better rest up in the shade for a while, who knows when we'll reach the end of the forest." Madara said all business. The sun was setting and the temperature cooling.

Itachi briefly entertained thoughts of questioning him like he was accused of doing. It wouldn't be unwise to continue moving through the relative coolness of the night and rest when it was too hot to move. But both of them were drained of energy so he didn't speak as he rested his back against a thin tree, Madara doing the same opposite of him.

Neither of them talked as the frigid moon chilled their sweat uncomfortably. It was only after an hour of silence had passed that Madara spoke up.

"You should sleep, I'll take watch."

Itachi raised an eyebrow. "You're the one who should recover his chakra, so sleep, I'll take watch."

"Can't." Was the dry response as the boy pointed at the bags under his eyes. "I don't sleep without medication and it's a waste of time to try."

"You should have asked that pharmacy girl for some, I'm sure she would have _gladly_ given it to you." He muttered in response.

Madara's eye twitched and he crossed his arms defensively. "Just sleep, stupid girl."

Itachi allowed himself to slip into a meditative rest was nearly sleeping but not quite, if any disturbance came near he would know. The boy was without chakra after all, the chance that he could defend them both if they were attacked was small, future legend or not.

"Ah, Itachi welcome back. Ramen?"

The Uchiha blinked then looked at his hands, his long fingered male hands. Then he looked up to see Naruto Uzumaki offer him a cup of instant ramen in his haphazard kitchen. With a frown, he realised he had fallen asleep, in the middle of nowhere with potential enemies near. How unlike him.

"No thank you Naruto-san. I'm not hungry." He informed the still waiting blond.

The young Uzumaki shrugged. "Your loss!" Then he proceeded to put the cup next to his own and seemed all the happier for being able to eat two. When he was bringing the first bite to his mouth he stopped to think of something. "Kurama, you want some?"

Itachi was shocked to see the kyuubi's head pop up from under the table and grumpily bark. "No, I don't want your disgusting human grub."

"What!? Disgusting? How could you? It's the food of the kami!" Naruto's shrieks reminded Itachi of the Shukaku's, it made him grimace despite himself.

"You humans used to call me a kami once. Sure, as hell never liked ramen." The nine-tails responded unfazed by Naruto's shrieks of outrage.

"You, a god? Hahaha now there's a great joke."

The two continued bantering for a while before everything calmed down and Naruto addressed Itachi again, slightly miffed. "Can you believe that guy. Sometimes I wonder how he ended up sealed in me."

"You… already know how? Don't you?" Itachi asked, since the last time he had seen the blonde he had surely been aware of his jinchūriki status. Then again this was a dream, it wasn't supposed to make sense.

"Well yeah." The boy scratched the back of his head, a nervous tell. Odd. "But you know… I only heard the story. I wasn't actually there… well, technically I was but not consciously."

"Right." Itachi provided.

"Where you there, Itachi?" The blonde suddenly leaned closer.

"No." He said simple and added as an afterthought. "I was five."

"Oh." Naruto said, uncharacteristically quiet. And with that the dream ended.

When he woke up he know something was not right. His vision swam when he opened his eyes, his left arm throbbed and his head felt fuzzy. He was sick, whether it was because of one of his wounds being infected or because of the temperature change during the night, he didn't know. By feel of his arm and the chilled temperature of his clothes, it was both.

Yet he pushed himself up without any complaint because he had been through worse, so much worse. A voice startled him, making him suppress a flinch.

"Ah, you're up." Through a blurry vision, he could see Madara getting up from a meditative position. "Good."

"Let's go." Itachi mumbled in response.

"Wait a sec, I recovered some of my chakra during the night." Madara said.

That's why he had been meditating, Itachi realised when the boy went through some hand signs that he immediately recognised. As Madara bit his thumb to draw blood so he could complete the summon, Itachi wondered why he wasted chakra on something like that, unless it was to summon a creature that could carry them across the terrain faster than their legs could, he didn't see the point.

He was disappointed when a long-haired silver cat appeared, definitely not big enough to carry them.

"Madara boy," The cat said with an offended air around him, "why have you summoned me on this dusty floor! My beautiful paws are getting dirty." It's clear blue eyes levelled him with an unimpressed stare.

The boy in question deadpanned. "Look, reverse summon yourself, find my parents and tell them Itachi and I are moving north from Shihonkyu and that we have encountered Senju in the capital. Itachi's injured and we're more than a week's travel away from the compound. My parent's will know what to do." As an afterthought he added, "Please."

The cat took one disdainful look at the overly dry ground and hissed, "My pleasure." With a cloud of smoke, he was gone. Now Itachi understood, a prolonged absence of the clan heir was probably not a very good thing in unstable times such as these. Notifying the clan was for the best, maybe they would even receive back up.

Madara inclined his head towards the path ahead of them. "Now we can go."

Itachi nodded and they continued their difficult trek uphill. The pounding in his head didn't make it easier and his canteen was gradually becoming empty while they had yet to find a stream. The small patch of forest should indicate water though.

"We should be careful, just because Hashirama was stupid enough to let us live doesn't mean the other Senju will."

Itachi perked up when the Senju heir was mentioned. The details on his friendship with the Uchiha boy were vague at best in Konoha's history books. This was an interesting opportunity to learn, after all Itachi had been convinced the two had only met outside of the battlefield later on, when they were adults

"So, how long have you and the Senju heir been friends?" He sounded nonchalant while eying Madara's stiffening shoulders.

His reply was automatic. "We're not friends." There was a hard undertone in his voice that warned him not to press the subject any further. Of course, Itachi smoothly ignored it.

"He stopped his brother from tactically killing you, something his clan could have benefited greatly from and he talked to you about peace. Forgive me for forming my _own_ conclusions."

A red eyed glare was send his way. "When we get back to the compound don't tell anybody." He said with a hiss. "It's no one's business."

"Hm, exactly what am I not supposed to tell." Itachi's amusement was great when he saw the boy's cheeks reddening in anger.

"What. You. Saw. There." Because of their unknown surroundings, Madara's voice was still kept quiet despite the venom laced in it.

"Touchy subject?" He jested.

Madara abruptly turned away from him, smart enough to know one did not cause a scene in the middle of nowhere while possibly surrounded by enemies. As fun as tormenting the young Uchiha was it sadly hadn't provided Itachi with any new information. Despite liking the thought of getting to uncover new history he decided to lay off.

"I'll keep this whole trip to myself, you can decide what to tell people when we get back." Honestly, Itachi hoped the boy wouldn't go prancing around, telling anybody who'd listen that the storage girl managed to save him from a tailed beast. It would attract too much unwanted attention. Looking at the prideful boy, he probably wouldn't do that because that would mean admitting he needed saving from a girl and he knew how sexist this era was.

For a moment it was quiet, then without turning around Madara started mumbling. "We met when we were eight, I didn't know who he was, he didn't know who I was. We were just two kids who understood each other, then we figured out where the other was from and it ended in a fight, end of story."

There was more to it than that, his gut told him, but he gave it a rest and focused on getting back home.

XXXXXX

They hadn't found a body in Chimachi despite spending the whole night searching. Because of that they were searching the forest next, but the men were getting tired and there was no trace to follow, none at all, as if the ground had swallowed the two kids.

Tajima was slowly losing hope, Izuna looked ready to cry and Itsura was becoming more desolate every passing minute. A bush rustled near them, too loud to be of an enemy nin. They all turned too it as a silver cat emerged from the greenery.

"Ah, here you are troublesome Uchiha. You have no idea how long I had to search for you. Why couldn't you just be in the compound?" The creature whined.

"Not now Ryu…" It was a horribly unfitting name for the spoiled cat. The group payed the cat no further mind and continued scouting.

"Not now? Not now!?" Ryu fussed. "Your boy might be fighting off Senju as we speak and you find staring at that bush more pressing?" This got the attention of all present Uchiha.

Tajima's sharingan involuntary activated at the mention of their most hated enemy. "Fighting off Senju… Where!"

"North to Shihonkyu. Which would be… I don't know… South to you? I don't actually get how that works but they were moving away from Shihonkyu to their north, or something like that." The cat happily babbled.

"The capital? How… in such a short time?!" The youngest Uchiha spoke and while he did have a point his father didn't bother with wasting time on the answer and said. "We need to move, he's in a battle with Senju without his armour or backup."

The group quickly assembled into a traveling formation and sped off towards the capital.

Ryu busy with licking himself clean said. "Did I mention he wasn't actually engaged in a battle when I was summoned by him?" He then lifted his head to find the Uchiha squad gone. "Oh well…"

XXXXXX

Two things bothered him, both closely related. One, he was out of water and two, he was thirsty. He frowned watching his little brother walk ahead of him, slowly drifting further away. They needed to stop their stroll through the woods and get back to the village for a drink.

"Sasuke, wait up." He called out, the little boy was so energetic. His voice must have not carried far enough for the boy did not stop.

"Sasuke!" This time his little brother did stop and turned to him. Itachi's vision was too blurry to make out his face but his chakra was all he needed to recognise the boy.

"Itachi?" He sounded confused, his voice a little deeper than what Itachi was used too he also didn't address him as ni-san or aniki, which he found strange.

He hummed in displeasure when he noticed how tall his little brother had grown, the boy was growing up too fast. When he caught up to Sasuke he poked his forehead to remind him who was the older one and said "Foolish otouto."

Sasuke reeled back in what Itachi assumed was going to be protest, he was looking forward to it, but the moment was ruined when he heard a rustling behind him.

"Wha- Itachi, watch out."

His brother pulled him forward just as two kunai rushed at the spot where he stood before. Itachi frowned, who was bothering him and his brother on their peaceful stroll? And why were they running? His senses told him they were being followed by four shinobi, strong shinobi.

"Sasuke, don't worry I can take them." There were very few shinobi that he couldn't take after all. His eyes found the path in front of them and realised they were reaching a cliff, the faint rustling of water told him a stream or river was at the bottom of it. He stumbled and his vision blurred once more as Sasuke pulled on him and threw him on his shoulder. His _little_ brother, carrying him? What travesty was this?

When Sasuke cried out and fell, he rolled on the ground with panic riddling his mind. His eyes landed on the blood on his otouto's legs and panic was replaced by rage, the likes of which Itachi didn't often experience.

Nobody hurt his little brother, Nobody!

He raised his eyes towards the four men with the familiar ache of the mangekyou and took one second to look at the fools that dared upset him. They wore unfamiliar armour and no village crest on their person and one of them was in the middle of performing a jutsu.

He narrowed his bleeding eyes and mumbled. "Burn." Black all-consuming flames rose up in the air as the screaming started.

He couldn't enjoy the sight for long though because a doton jutsu met him full-force, propelling him of the cliff.

The worst part of the day, he lost sight of Sasuke.

XXXXX

 **Okay that's it people, pretty short but with plenty of pace, I hope. I might add more commentary tomorrow, sooo tired now.**


	7. Chapter 7

**For the people who follow this story and for those new, I'm hereby discontinuing the catch.**

 **I don't have a particular reason only that I'm no longer enjoying writing it, fanfiction is a way for me to practice my writing in an easy, laid-back way. Writing the catch has become a chore instead of something I do to relax and lately I even put off 'writing time' because of that.**

 **I will be trying my hand at some new stories though.**

 **Thank you for reading this!**


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